Since October, Micaela Kirby-Crowe has been roaming the Greenstone, Caples, Dart and Routeburn valleys, watching for the vivid colours of kaka on the wing or listening for their distinctive screeches and whistles.
As part of her Master of Wildlife Management degree, Miss Kirby-Crowe is studying the effects of predator control on the abundance of native bird species in the area and the large, forest-dwelling parrot is her prime focus.
Their relative scarcity and propensity for travelling "huge" distances to forage for food meant it was difficult to gather reliable data, she said.
However, by observing their preferred habitat in the four valleys, her work would help future researchers.
"It is setting up a process for research that can be repeated by others."
She had also been recording her sightings of kakariki and mohua, in order to have enough data to hone her analytical skills.
A summer holiday job at the Queenstown Department of Conservation (Doc) office two years ago meant she was familiar with the area, but she knew very little about kaka before beginning the project.
They were a beautiful and "gentler version" of kea, and made an array of sounds, including melodic whistles as well as more parrot-like screeches.
After a sedentary year of study in Dunedin, she was "really, really unfit" when she started the project, she said.
"My boots didn't feel good, my pack was heavy - it was brutal for the first few weeks."
Now she often jogged between her bird counting spots, and despite the occasional drenching, felt attuned to the environment.
"I enjoy being by myself, but there are usually people in the huts at night to talk to."
She was able to use the hut warden quarters in the valleys' huts, which meant she could take a solar-heated shower most nights and did not have to lug cooking gear around.
She spent between two and eight days in the field at a time, interspersed with a day of data entry at her base at Doc's Glenorchy office.
After taking a break in Christchurch over Christmas and New Year, she will return early next month for a final two weeks of field work, and then begin writing her dissertation.
She had yet to decide what she would do after graduating in June.
"I just want to spend as much time in the field as possible in the next few years - I'll work anywhere, on any animal."
Asked about Kevin, the kaka that visits a Queenstown hotel, Miss Kirby-Crowe said she had never heard of kaka visiting Queenstown before.
After seeing very few of the birds in the first few weeks of her field work in the upper Wakatipu since October, she had laughed when she heard about Kevin.
"I spent weeks walking around the forest looking for these birds, and then I heard there was one in Queenstown."
She planned to spend a night at Azur Lodge early in the new year, in the hope of seeing the bird.
