Until last year I hadn't heard of the Kakapo - one of the world's rarest birds. There are only 127 of these flightless parrots left, all in New Zealand, most of whom live on Codfish Island. Go any further south and you'll reach the south pole. Despite living in the UK I had missed the moment when the Kakapo hit the world stage thanks to the BBC's "Last Chance to See...". Watching this clip, its clear why the Kakapo became a world star after his encounter with Stephen Fry and Mark Carawadine...

But I had never heard of the Kakapo, nevermind Sirocco, until I got to New Zealand in July. I was there to do some research on the New Zealand approach to managing animal diseases in agriculture - particularly one called bovine Tuberculosis which affects cattle and possums. The plan was to go to Wellington to meet some people in the Animal Health Board (AHB) and then head up to see one of their vets (Jane Sinclair) in Hamilton. When I met Paul Livingstone in the AHB he told me that Jane had won a raffle the previous Christmas to go off to Codfish Island to help out with the Kakapo recovery programme. To be honest, I had no idea what he was talking about - but the AHB were certainly proud of what Jane had done. It wasn't until I got to see Jane that I began to realise the significance of the Kakapo, and how I was a lot closer to it than I ever imagined...

Jane showed me the brilliant Scott Mouat film about the Kakapo recovery team - see the clip below.

Jane explained the history of the Kakapo and the conditions of living on Codfish. You can read what she did during her stint volunteering here. Then she showed me the photos she took, and that was when something strange happened.

I knew that my friends' daughter from Cardiff - Ruth Cole - was working in New Zealand for the Department of Conservation "doing something with rare animals", so her Dad Jim told me. I also knew that she had managed to get her brother out to help out with what she was doing. Looking at Jane's photos, she suddenly said "oh look, he's a Welshman too" pointing at someone in a picture. "But, I know him, that's Henry!" I said. It turned out they were both volunteering on Codfish island at the same time. It's a small world.  

After that, I became a bit of a Kakapo fanatic: and have been converting others, starting with my family. When I got home I told the story of the Kakapo and showed the online videos of Sirocco to my daughter who instantly fell in love with him. We decided that the cuddly kiwi I bought was not really a kiwi after all, and looked much more like a Kakapo with its big beak and fat body. When I returned to New Zealand in November, I came back with the award winning book on the Kakapo by Alison Ballance.

I also began following Spokesbird - Sirocco himself - on Twitter!

My daughter continued this good work by telling all her friends in Wales. Soon her teacher was asking me to come in and tell everyone in her school about the Kakapo! So one afternoon I had the job of speaking to group of 70 eight year olds about the Kakapo. As my daughter goes to a Welsh speaking school we started off with some Mauri words: being Wales, the one they all knew was Haka - and when I showed them this, they wanted to know if Jonah Lomu was in it!

At the time, their theme was "endangered animals" - so obviously the Kakapo fitted well with that. But I also spoke to them about the Kiwi, and other New Zealand birds like the Pukeko, Pipiwharauroa, Kea and Tui. I told them Mauri story of how the Kiwi came to lose its wings.

And then we watched some short films about the Kakapo and Sirocco.

They all loved it, and so did the teachers - their teacher told me afterwards that they had spent the rest of the afternoon reeling of Kakapo facts. Some of them had even set up a Kakapo club and the rest were looking for information on the internet about Kakapos for the project on endangered species.

But they asked me some difficult questions! How did Tane Mahuta speak to the Kiwi? Why is the Kakapo green? Why did all the other Kiwis come down from the trees too? Im not sure I answered all of them correctly, but I know they were fascinated by the Kakapo. Maybe that is the best hope for the Kakapo - it really is a charismatic bird, why wouldn't you want to save such an interesting creature? So that's my good deed for conservation. A unique story for an exceptional bird. And even Sirocco agrees: