You are looking at New Zealand's newest native bird. After a few abortive attempts to start a family, a Kaitaia based couple produced three healthy owlets which effectively moves them up a rung from vagrant, to a *drum roll please!*…. native bird.
BLOG: Birdy come lately, Campaign Manager for the Barn Owl, Shane Wohlers
These magnificent ocean-goers have a magnificent defence mechanism – if they feel threatened they just serve up a fishy jelly-like projectile missile. And you just thought they were a pretty face?
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Photo: Courtesy of DOC
The piwakwaka's splashy tail, architectural abilities (some even use cobwebs!) and loopy-flying style definitely puts it a beak ahead of the rest.
Photo: Craig McKenzie
You’ve got to love a bird that carries its cutlery at the end of its beak. A brilliant blend of the majestic and the absurd.
Photo: Craig McKenzie
This green-suited bogan of a bird is one of our most intelligent and inquisitive tweeters. It’s up there with jays and crows in the avian intelligence stakes.
BLOG: Loony tune, Campaign Manager for the kea, Tiff Stewart
Photo: Andrew Walmsley
The boy racer of our skies. These guys can reach 100p/hour and they're just warming up.
Conversations with Karearea, Campaign Manager for the NZ Falcon, Alan McDougall
Photo: EssjayNZ
These birds don’t place great value on home-ownership, and will form a home from a mere scrape in the sand, giving it little protection from human and animal threats. In recent years, their numbers have fallen perilously low
Photo: Craig McKenzie
You’ve got to love these beady-eyed, crafty birds for their sandwich-snatching abilities. The stealth! The speed! The sheer cheek!
BLOG: The thinking person's crumpet, Campaign Manager for the weka, Don McGlashan.
A bog-tastic bird with a sophisticated criminal mind, liberal sexual sensibilities and stunning blue coat : what more could you want in a bird?
BLOG: Underbird, Wonderbird, Campaign Manager for the pukeko, Pavarotti Jackson
The Nick Cave of the bird world, our blue wattled crow has a song so spooky that you could throw a sheet over it and call it a ghost. It’s mysterious South Island cousin hasn’t been seen for years, but fervent believers are convinced its song still haunts the forests of Kahurangi National Park.
BLOG: Robin Hood, Campaign Manager for the kokako & co-leader of the Green Party, Russel Norman
Photo: Roger Colbourne
These birds are unforgettable with their fire-engine red legs and tight, shiny black jackets. There are only 94 kaki left living in the world - and, they've chosen one of our most iconic spots to live - the Mackenzie country. Beauty, and brains to boot!
BLOG: Ms Mackenzie, Campaign Manager for the Black Stilt, Grahame Sydney
Photo: DP Murray
These giant nocturnal parrots inflate their thoracic sac and let out an ear-shattering boom to announce to the ladies in the region that it’s business time. Unfortunately, business time only comes around when the rimu tree fruits, so their breeding prowess has been less them fruitful – there are only 122 birds left in the world!.
BLOG: Boom-bastic, Campaign Manager for the kakapo, Hon Kate Wilkinson, Minister of Conservation.
The penguin plans to romp to the finish line by extolling its devilish good looks. The rockhopper penguin ( pictured) is a clear winner with its jaunty, gravity-defying eyebrows. Nine types of penguin reside on our shores and surrounding islands - lots to choose from!
BLOG: Swell, Campaign Manager for the Little Blue Penguin, Stephanie Gray
This bully of a bird gets free lunches by chasing other birds until they vomit up their last meal. Its loud-mouthed nature and piratical habits surely give it some brownie points in the bad-boy stakes?
BLOG: Enraptored? Campaign Manager for the skua, Tom Hunt
Photo: Don Merton
This wattled bird got its saddle when maui lashed out after it failed to quench its thirst when he was busy lassoing the sun. The heat of his hand singed the bird's back and from that day forth, the saddleback wore a brown saddle.
Photo: Marguerite Quin
The whitehead deserves your vote for being a tireless surrogate parent to long-tailed and shining cuckoos. They give these over-sized chicks the lion’s share of their food, and turn a blind-eye as they evict the rest of the brood! All this, without even a tweet of complaint.
Photo: Jordan Kappely
Help! This is our rarest endemic breeding bird, with fewer than 40 left. It’s competing with humans and predators in its struggle for survival on beaches north of Auckland. We’re working to find an alternative fairyland – just call us avian real estate agents!
Photo: Courtesy of DOC
Like a pukeko on steroids, only much, much rarer. This bird seemed lost forever until - wonders of all wonders - a few takahe were found in Fiordland in 1948.
Photo: Craig McKenzie
You’ve got to love this bird, if only for it’s Cindy Lauper-esque eye makeup, and it's ability to stand for hours on end hanging its wings out to dry.
Photo: Pied shag,Jordan Kappelly
BLOG: Truly, madly, deeply, Campaign team for the Shag, Room 16, Birkenhead Primary School, North Shore, Auckland
A favourite of Kiri Te Kanawa's, this dove-like bird plays a berry, berry important role in seed distribution.
Photo: Courtesy of DOC
BLOG: Forest Savior , Campaign Manager for the kereru and Opera Singer, Kiri Te Kanawa
Seldom seen, often heard, unmistakable.
BLOG: Little Lion Bird, Campaign Manager for the ruru, Jerome Chandrahasen
Photo: Chris Turner
Do not adjust your set folks, this bird's beak is permanently bent off to one side. The reason? So it can get insects from underneath rocks. It is ONLY bird with a beak that bends off to one side. Give your vote to this bendy beaked beauty!
BLOG: Wrybill - wry not?!, Campaign Manager for the Wrybill, Nic Vallance
Photo: Tom Marshall
Often referred to as "Jesus birds" because of the way they use their feet on the sea’s surface, this dimunitive sea-bird pogo-hops, skitters and glides it's way to the Humboldt Current to feed, and then returns in August-September to breed.
Photo: White-face Storm Petrel,Chris Gaskin
BLOG: Hop, skip, flutter and glide , Campaign Manager, Chris Gaskin
This shag-pile of a bird can play a mean game of statues. Thoreau once called it the 'genius of the bog'.
BLOG: Wanted: Heronimo, Campaign Manager for the Australasian Bittern, Peter Langlands.
Photo: C.D Roderick
Believed to have arrived in New Zealand as a stowaway in the rigging of sailing ships from Australia but has made itself at home. That’s good enough to count as a Kiwi isn’t it?
BLOG: The Every-bird, Campaign Manager for the Silvereye, Stacey Wood.
Photo: Nga Manu
Singing the hits of tuiday, tuimorrow and yestuiday – the tui has an uncanny ability to mimic the sounds of it’s environment ( read: pizza jingles, cellphone rings, car alarms), and incorporate them into its rumpty melody of cackles, barks, wheezes and clicks.
Photo: Craig McKenzie
BLOG: Box of Voices, Campaign Manager for the tui, Anna Coddington.
This feathered bumblebee of a bird has a chirpy song that belies it’s drab, grey outfit and a sonic volume that’s defies its diminutive size. It weighs just 6.5 grams, or the equivalent of two 10 cent coins.
Photo: Courtesy of DOC
Our national icon: smells like a forest mushroom, kicks like a kangaroo and burrows like a mouse.
Blog: Prize Battler, Campaign Manager for the kiwi and BNZ Save the Kiwi Executive Director, Michelle Impey
Photo: Courtesy of DOC
You might miss this itsy-bitsy bird. It is NZ's smallest bird measuring just 8 centimetres in height.
Photo: Simon Fordham
This feathered golf-ball of a bird played a vital role in helping the Chatham Island black robin return from the brink by acting as a surrogate parent. Give your vote to this selfless, conservationist!
Photo: Don Merton
The roaring millinery industry in the 1930s -1940s almost exterminated the majestic, lake-dwelling kotuku (white heron) in an attempt to satisfy the demand for feathery hats. There are four types of these birds that live in NZ.
Photo courtesy of DOC
Don’t let its regal looks fool you - this bruiser of a bird is known to stun and pulverise its small prey by flinging its victims against fence posts and rocks. Cast your vote for this royal thug of a bird!
Photo: Tom Marshall
These white-water lovers can be found bobbing around our alpine streams, and number just 3000 birds. The male has been blessed with a whispering call (fee-o) that gives it its name. The female’s call is not-so-ladylike and is best described as growl.
Photo: Craig McKenzie
The kaka loves to get together with its mates in the early morning or early evening. They sound like garrulous geezers propping up a bar once they’ve got a glug of nectar down their throats.
Photo: Brent Bevan
Our only true alpine bird that lives and breeds in the alpine zone all year round, the diminutive mountain dweller appears to be in decline – possibly partly because of climate change. It needs your support!
BLOG: Rock, bob and roll, Campaign Manager for the Rock Wren, Craig McKenzie
Photo: Rod Morris
Poof! Although robins are a relatively common sight in our forests, there was one species – the Chatham Island robin – who’s population was brought down to single digits. One famous bird – Old Blue – mothered her species back from the brink of extinction in the 1980s.
Photo: Don Merton
Why this New Caledonian immigrant decided to fly onto our shores is a mystery to us all - we're just thankful it adds a little vibrancy and colour to our forests.
Photo: Red-crowned parakeet, photo: Don Merton
BLOG: Ode to the kakariki, Campaign Manager for the kakariki, Phil Bilbrough
Like its cousin the flamingo, the grebe woos its partner with its dancing feet. It will dance breast-to-breast, bill-to-bill while crooning and gurgling sweet nothings to its mate. Plus, it will ferry its young around on its back. There’s lots of reasons to love the grebe.
Photo: Craig McKenzie
These international travellers lap the world every year, flying to Alaska and back to New Zealand to breed. The godwit (kuaka) deserves your vote even if it is just for the sheer lunacy of undertaking this marathon flight every year, and coming back to tell the tale!
BLOG: Climate Change Canary, Campaign Manager for the Bar Tailed Godwit and Labour's Spokesperson for the Environment, Charles Chauvel.
Photo: Rod Morris
An Australian red-neck that has become a welcome addition to our skies.
Desperately in danger of being wiped out by pests, they need all the help they can get – vote yellowhead in Bird of the Year!
This vulnerable little bird is an endangered inhabitant of the dense, tangled native vegetation characteristic of NZ’s besieged and diminishing wetland and saltmarsh wilds.
BLOG: Swamp Guardian, Campaign Manager for the Fernbird, Anne Fenn
Photo: Craig McKenzie
The titi will be campaigning on its youngin's poodle-rock hairdo, it's international jetsetting nature and its dark, brooding good looks.
Photo: Dick Veitch
The harrier hawk does not rest its popularity on tugged heart strings, nor does it care for endangered lists – if anything it creates them. A handsome, elegant gent of a bird - one most worthy of Bird of the Year
This Australian immigrant came to our 'empty paradise' 75 years ago, and now numbers over 10,000 birds. Deplored for its noisy cry, this bird hasn't exactly been welcomed with open arms, but given its prodigious breeding habits - its here to stay.
The takapu’s ability to turn itself into a submarine fish-seeking missile is something that will no doubt win the hearts and minds of fishers out there.
Photo: Thomas Becker
You may well think Ms Kaikoura is bird-brained because it nests in the snow but this endangered bird makes up for it's lack of cerebral prowess with its superb navigational skills & its fledgling's punkish good-looks .
The male hihi carries on a bold splash of yellow on its back - something that has caused bird nerds to wax poetic. Conservationist & author, Guthrie Smith once gushed - 'the male then appears not a bird but a huge brilliant tropical butterfly — a magnificent creature indeed'
The bellbird or korimako might not look like much, but what a song! “A sequence of liquid notes,” “wonderful flute-like chimes,” “like small bells exquisitely tuned.” He’ll sing his way into voters’ hearts.
BLOG: A Singer of Songs, Campaign Manager for the korimako, David Winter
This secretive, taciturn Australian has an unhurried, dreamy butterfly-like flying style. How it got here on its own steam who knows?
BLOG: Butterfly Bird, Campaign Manager for the Black-fronted Dotterel and Lower North Island Field Officer, Aalbert Rebergen
This enigmatic bird is a favourite amongst petrel heads. It burst back on the scene in 2003 when it was discovered dancing on the waters of Whitianga. It's life is still shrouded in mystery though - no one knows where it breeds, or the extent of the population.
BLOG: Lost and found, Campaign Manager for the NZ Storm Petrel, Brent Stephenson.
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