Have you ever wondered what is New Zealand’s favourite bird? Forest & Bird ask this question annually, but their ‘Bird of the Year’ competition is skewed by the unashamed lobbying of passionate bird lovers, along with alleged multiple voting, leaving us none the wiser as to what is our true national favourite.
The New Zealand Birds Online website was launched a year ago, and provides an independent and objective measure of which bird we most want to know more about – if that can be interpreted as our favourite species. The website has a separate page for each of New Zealand’s 461 bird species, including all fossil, extinct and vagrant species (i.e. those that occasionally reach our shores from distant lands).
There were over 264,000 visits to the website in its first year, providing a huge dataset for which bird’s page was visited most often. There was much speculation on which would be the most popular bird, but in the end the winner was far ahead of the pack.
The runaway winner was the tūī, with 14,969 views. Perhaps appropriately, it was also the inaugural (2005) winner of the ‘Bird of the Year’ poll.
The top seven species were all native land birds that regularly occur in or near one or more of the major cities, suggesting that contact with native New Zealand birds is the major driver for people to look them up on New Zealand Birds Online. While the tūī was the clear leader, the second placed bellbird (8755 views) was closely followed by shining cuckoo (8276), fantail (8145), kākā (7784), morepork (7731) and pūkeko (7633).
In contrast, kiwi (of which there are five species) were well down the pack. Being our national bird did not translate into viewing statistics, with the most viewed kiwi species (North Island brown kiwi) managing only 3305 views, and all kiwi combined mustering 8696.
The most-viewed introduced bird species was the eastern rosella in 8th place (7466 views), followed by song thrush (6926), blackbird (5617) and California quail (5202) among the top twenty.
Kākāpo (5235 views) was in 15th place, but was the leading species among those never or rarely found in cities (followed by kea with 4741 views, and long-tailed cuckoo with 4602).
If we look at the nine winners of the ‘Bird of the Year’ poll, six of them were among the top 20 most-viewed species on New Zealand Birds Online. In order of the number of views, they were:
| Species | Bird of the Year | NZ Birds Online views | Rank |
| Tūī | 2005 | 14,969 | 1 |
| Fantail | 2006 | 8145 | 4 |
| Pūkeko | 2011 | 7633 | 7 |
| Kārearea (falcon) | 2012 | 5734 | 11 |
| Grey warbler | 2007 | 5726 | 12 |
| Kākāpo | 2008 | 5238 | 15 |
| Kiwi* | 2009 | 3305 | 32 |
| Kākāriki* | 2010 | 2143 | 52 |
| Mohua (yellowhead) | 2013 | 1854 | 61 |
*The viewing figures for ‘kiwi’ use the North Island brown kiwi viewing stats (see above), and the ‘kākāriki ’ figures are based on red-crowned parakeet (the most-viewed parakeet species). If all six parakeet = kākāriki species are combined, there were 5622 page views.
It will be interesting to see how long it is before bellbird, shining cuckoo, kākā and morepork feature as ‘Birds of the Year’.
Related blogs
An interesting analogy.
What about Tieke , surely the most active and vocal of our forest birds just amazing to watch them working their way through a patch of bush
I am surprised that the kokako wasn’t even mentioned. I believe it has a clearer tune and is more beautiful than the Tui.Just my opinion
In with agreement with Cheryl Skinner. For the first time in 11-12 years the wood pigeons (Kereru) have not appeared to plunder my guava tree here in the Kaipara.
While unaware of their significance as native tree seed carriers their drunken antics once gorged have been missed.
We also are missing the Kereru in our bay in the Marlborough Sounds. When we arrived about 5 years ago they would thrill us with their mating displays and at other times we had to stop the car to allow a flock of them to fly past. Their numbers have steadily declined since then and we have not seen or heard one for many months. I am a retired scientist and I have figured out, by observations, why their numbers have fallen so dramatically. I will see if others can figure out the reason. As a hint, we live within only a few kilometres of the vineyards of Marlborough. I do know that we cannot afford to lose the Kereru here as they are critically important for the restoration of indigenous forest in the Sounds.
Hi Don
I had not heard of kereru numbers declining in the Marlborough Sounds. I see what you are hinting at re proximity to vineyards, but I am very doubtful of any connection there. I will forward your comment to two people who live and work in the area and who contribute bird sightings to the eBird mapping scheme, to see if they have any comments.
Kind regards
Colin
@ Colin M> Re- that ‘eBird Mapping Scheme’ you mention above…
Do you have a link to it you could post here for us please?
Thanks, DN
http://ebird.org/content/newzealand/
I agree! And I missed the Takahe among cited birds, very endangered specie as well…
As much as I like the New Zealand Birds Online website, I don’t think the number of visits to their individual bird pages is a more accurate claim as to what may be NZ’s favourite bird than Forest and Birds’ annual competition. It’s a great tool identifying birds in our environment – and that probably happens a lot when visitors to that site look up the birds they encounter in their surroundings, hence the high ranking for more common birds. How many people are lucky enough to get to see kakariki or mohua and then wanting to find out details?
Sad to see the Kereru so low on the list ,when he is the most important of all in distributing the larger seeds of our Native forests.
What no KOKAKO,( blue Wattled crow) .
The most haunting melodic call Ive ever heard!.