Watch the video of a parrot that stole a family's GoPro and recorded their escape 0:48
(CNN) --
A New Zealand family got an unexpected bird's-eye view of a trail they had just hiked in the South Island's Fiordland National Park after a mischievous parrot stole their GoPro and went on the run.
The Verheul family, from Dunedin in the south-east of the country, had just finished exploring part of the Kepler Track when a kea, a species native to New Zealand, grabbed their GoPro and flew over the forest.
They had turned on the device to film a group of curious birds, who had joined them outside the cabin where they were staying, Alex Verheul said in an interview with broadcaster Seven Sharp on Thursday.
But one cheeky kea took flight with the camera, capturing aerial images of the landscape before landing on a piece of ground and hitting the device repeatedly with its beak.
At one point the bird can be seen ripping a piece of plastic from the camera casing.
Surprisingly, the GoPro survived her ordeal: a family member heard the clamor and ran in the direction of the squawk to retrieve it.
Conveniently, Verheul told Seven Sharp that the bird had flown in a straight line, so they were able to track it.
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"We just followed the sound, went down there, we could see them hanging in the tree. They obviously heard us coming and they ditched the GoPro, and my son decided to go check the rocks...and there it was. It was, just laying there, still filming." .
"I downloaded (the images) on my phone... It was amazing. It was totally unexpected."
The next day, he added, a Kea also stole a mug from a backpack.
CNN has reached out to Verheul for further comment.