🦜 Bruce
Kea (Nestor notabilis), the world's only alpine parrot · Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, Christchurch, New Zealand
Lives in Monkey Mountain
Bruce was found as a juvenile at Arthur's Pass in 2013 with the entire upper half of his beak missing, most likely torn off in a trap. Researchers doubted he could look after himself. Instead he invented a solution: he selects small pebbles of a particular size, wedges them against his intact lower bill with his tongue, and rakes them through his feathers to preen. The nine-day study, published in Scientific Reports in 2021, was the first record of any parrot using a tool for self-care and made him famous well beyond New Zealand. He has since become the alpha male of his reserve's group, winning fights by using his bare lower mandible as a jousting spike.
What they do
Picks up a pebble, tips his head to wedge it against his open lower bill with his tongue, then drags it down through his chest feathers - a three-frame pebble-preen..
Half a beak and twice the attitude: problem-solver, brawler and boss of the whole flock.
Lore
- ★Found at Arthur's Pass in 2013 as a juvenile with his upper beak gone from below the nostrils, probably from a trap.
- ★He picks pebbles of a specific size, positions them with his tongue against his lower bill, and preens with them - the first parrot ever recorded using a tool for self-care, published in Scientific Reports.
- ★He also scrapes harder food against metal and rock to break it up, a behaviour no other kea at the reserve does.
- ★Despite the injury he is alpha male of a group of twelve, charging rivals and jabbing at their legs with his bare lower mandible.
Helping the real one
💛 Support Bruce via Kea Conservation TrustNew Zealand charity working to protect wild kea. It supports the species, not Bruce personally - Bruce is cared for by Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, which had no fetchable donate page. Kea Conservation Trust's donate page was fetched and is working. This opens their own official page. Money never touches this site.
Where this comes from
- ABC News (Australia) Disabled NZ parrot uses lower beak to dominate as alpha bird, April 2026 ↗
- Smithsonian Magazine Bruce the parrot uses tools to survive a broken beak ↗
Every link here was checked twice before it was published. If one is dead or wrong, tell us.