Fifty five people like the fact that last Friday Sirocco Kakapo posted the following message on Facebook:

Skraark!! Some kakapo trivia for yers...did you know no-one actually knows how long kakapo live for? All of the kakapo whose ages are known are still well and truly alive, while no-one knew the birth dates of those named birds that have died...it's estimated our life span may be 90 years or more!

And at the time of writing this blog 6,426 people liked his Facebook page. Not bad for a Government department’s spokesbird.

In a time when many online friendships are fleeting or faux, I doubt sixty four hundred Facebook  “likes” qualifies Sirocco for the “Superstar who flies by plane to save his species” tag, as the Sunday Star Times' Sarah Harvey gushed at the weekend.

But given what Sirocco did to BBC environmentalist Mark Cawardine in front of an overly excited Stephen Fry a couple of years ago our fine feathered friend does know how to grab the limelight.

Sirocco also has a Twitter account (more than 3,100 followers) and an “official” role as spokesbird for conservation. By “official” I assume he’s paid, pays taxes, and makes KakapoSaver contributions.

Sirocco’s tweets are, so far, regular, informative, and at times amusing, and he responds to questions quickly, as does the flock watching over his Facebook nest on his behalf.

Before the days of Al Morrison in the Director-General’s hotseat, who’d have picked the Department of Conservation to be at the forefront of an initiative like this?

Sure, plenty of other Government departments and Ministers are kicking the ball around on social media’s many playing fields (although most MPs’ attempts to engage via Twitter still earn a D- for interest/relevance). But DoC appears not to have put a foot wrong so far with this current campaign, even if it’s been a sedate start for Sirocco in terms of online viral marketing’s ability to cause an explosion of interest overnight.

We are, of course, talking about a somewhat gawky endangered bird rather than a somewhat gawky endangered rock or sports superstar.

The challenge for DoC’s staff will be to maintain the investment of time and money that will be required in the coming weeks and months to ensure that Sirocco’s fame really takes flight. This needs to be viewed as an endless migratory flight to a better place – not simple branch hopping.

Only then will Sirocco really be able to claim superstar status, as the most famous flightless parrot since Python’s Norwegian Blue.