A major benchmark has been reached on the island – kakapo numbers are now in triple figures and the chicks keep coming. I arrived on the island on March 5 to a flurry of activity and friendly faces and joined a team working day and night to ensure the season’s success.

Celebrations of the 100th bird took place on March 8 – well, as celebratory as 32 people can get at 5.30pm two bottles of fizzy between them, shortly before carrying a car battery up a hill and spending a wet-windy night eyes glued to ‘kakapo TV’.

Talking to Graeme Elliott, kakapo scientist, it seems that the team has high hopes for the bird’s future. "This marks a milestone in kakapo recovery – the first time the kakapo have been in three figures for 30 years* and the biggest breeding season in the history of the species’ management,” Graeme tells me. He has been working on their recovery for 14 years from a time when numbers were in their low 50s.

Spirits are high here, boosted by the hundredth bird, by the year’s productivity and also thanks to the dedication and good-nature of the kakapo rangers.

There are currently105 kakapo in existence with 14 chicks so far this season and counting.

*The population was estimated to be over a hundred birds when they were first discovered on Stewart Island - but it was a very unsecure population.