A small green parrot on the edge of extinction. The orange-fronted parakeet is the rarest parakeet in New Zealand. A few hundred birds survive in the beech forests of Canterbury and Marlborough. They are hanging on. Just barely. The margin for error is non-existent. Plumage is bright green with a yellow-orange band across the forehead. The crown is green. The rump is green. The underwings are blue. It looks very similar to the yellow-crowned parakeet. The differences are subtle. The orange-fronted has a narrower crown band. The yellow-crowned has a wider one. Identification requires care. Mistakes are easy in the dappled light of the canopy. Feeding focuses on seeds leaves berries and flowers. It specialises in beech seeds. When the beech trees mast producing a heavy crop of seeds the parakeets breed successfully. In poor seed years they breed less. They are tied to the forest. The cycle of the trees dictates the cycle of the birds. This dependency makes them vulnerable to changes in forest health. Breeding takes place in tree cavities. The nest is a hollow lined with wood dust. Three to five eggs are laid. The female incubates alone. The male brings food. The chicks fledge in about six weeks. The process is slow. It exposes the adults to risk for an extended period. Predators watch. They wait. The orange-fronted parakeet was once widespread in the South Island. Then came rats and stoats and cats. The parakeets declined. They vanished from most of their range. Now they survive only in a few isolated valleys. The Hurunui. The Poulter. The Hawdon. The birds are trapped behind predator control lines. These lines are artificial barriers against natural forces. They require constant maintenance. Conservationists have built a captive breeding programme. They release birds into predator-controlled sites. The parakeets are increasing. Slowly. The numbers are low but the trend is upward. This is a managed recovery. It is not a natural one. The main threat is predators. Stoats climb trees. They enter cavities. They eat eggs. They eat chicks. They eat adults. A stoat in a parakeet colony is a disaster. The impact is immediate and total. Local extinctions can happen in a single season. The orange-fronted parakeet was once considered a subspecies of the yellow-crowned parakeet. Now it is separate. It is also critically endangered. Taxonomic clarity arrived late. The population had already collapsed. The call is a rapid chattering 'ki-ki-ki' often given in flight. Flocks call constantly as they move through the canopy. In the beech forests of Canterbury the sound is rare. Hearing it is a privilege. It signals survival against the odds. The name kākāriki karaka means orange parakeet. It fits. The bird carries its identity on its forehead. It is a small flash of colour in a green world. It persists.