Bird watching has gone hi-tech at Zealandia, where GPS tracking devices have been attached to kaka.
The threatened native birds have been fitted with specially designed backpacks which hold 70.5gram tracking devices.
The packs hold tracking device technology and have been developed by Otago Unviersity PhD student Keith Payne.
Mr Payne said the data would help researchers understand where the birds go, instead of relying on occasional sightings from the public.
"It's especially valuable in urban areas where radio tracking the birds would be impossible through people's backyards or in built up areas."
Each tag should last around six months, storing a GPS location every 11 hours and transmitting an SMS message with 8 of these locations coded into the message.
Once the tags were in place, Mr Payne would use the nationwide network of cell phone towers to receive the data.
That would then be decoded back into exact locations.
Zealandia conservation manager Raewyn Empson said the research project was of national significance and it was the first time birds as small as kaka had been able to fitted with GPS tracking devices.
Staff at the sanctuary would be able to gather more information about where kaka were travelling and where they were roosting at night.
"Identifying birds from coloured leg bands is very difficult while they are in flight or high up in a tree or in the dark - so any additional information about the movements the kaka are making in Wellington will be of interest."
Five birds are carrying the tracking devices, and it is hoped more tags would be deployed next summer.
Mr Payne has an MSc in electronics and is doing his PhD in Zoology and Physics.
"While I was studying physics I was still a birder, that's how I like to balance things. I want findings from this data to help the birds."
The tags could be used to monitor other species and other students are using the same tags to monitor pateke in Northland and Bluff weka in Wanaka.
Ms Empson said it was estimated that 150 kaka lived at the sanctuary, although they were often spotted flying around Wellington.
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