Marilyn Terrell of National Geographic tells Boing Boing,

A Japanese red-crowned crane flailing in midair to impress a mate and a pair of orange-bellied parrots (fewer than 150 left) on a branch in Tasmania are some of the strikingly beautiful images of avian rarities among the winners in the first annual World's Rarest Birds international photo competition.
Above, photo by Shane McInnes: the extremely rare kakapo of New Zealand.
This picture of the large, flightless bird approaching the camera snagged first place in the "critically endangered or extinct in the wild" category. Only 124 animals remain in the wild--the species has been largely wiped out by introduced predatory mammals such as feral cats.
View the whole gallery here.

  • apoxia

    You wouldn’t want a kakapo as a pet. They have a very strong musky smell. One of the reasons they are highly endangered – very easy for mammals to hunt down by their smell and eat them.

  • Blinde Schildpad

    Let’s breed the crap out of these so everyone can haz one as a pet, ‘kay?

    You know you want to…

  • Anonymous

    Nobody tell Charles Muntz!

  • gwailo_joe

    Righteous Kakapo.

  • blueelm

    That is an amazing photograph. And what a cool looking bird.

  • Maggie Koerth-Baker

    Isn’t that the species that tried to mate with Stephen Fry during a documentary filming?

    • Lookforthewoman

      Stephen just watched and giggled, it tried to mate with Mark Carwardine during the awesome series ‘Last Chance to See’

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/

      :D

      • mellowknees

        dangit, you guys beat me to the Last Chance to See reference!

      • Maggie Koerth-Baker

        Ah, yes. Here’s the video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vfsHYiKY

        I love this bird because it looks so much like a muppet. At least, it does while it is mating.

        • Rich Keller

          That explains why the mating call sounds like Manah Manah.

        • dculberson

          Seems like something with a sex drive that strong would have no trouble avoiding endangerment!

          • Sekino

            Douglas Adams gives a wonderful explaination of the kakapo’s extremely complicated mating rituals. Here’s the part of a lecture of his about the kakapo (but the whole thing is fascinating).

            I’ve recently finished reading ‘Last Chance to See’ and it’s a gem. It’s absolutely hilarious, there was scarcely a page that didn’t have me chuckling out loud, yet it is extremely touching and Adams conveys well the feeling of urgency and grief about losing these animals.

  • Kaz

    Beautiful picture.. I am going to hold off on viewing the rest, though, until my iPad2 comes in .. I here there’s a National Geographic app for it! ;)

  • Amsterdaam

    That photo gave me a chill. Amazing.

  • Top Video Games

    Those are beautiful pictures! Love the colors in them.

  • kasinator79

    Can we start keeping these as pets since they are endangered? I would like this instead of a chihuahua please. Gorgeous animal.

  • g0d5m15t4k3

    The Kakapo was otherwordly. But the Brazilian Merganser made me go “D’awwwwwww”.