I encourage you to vote for one of our most energetic and friendly native birds – the fantail (piwakawaka). It is one of our most common and widely distributed native birds on the New Zealand mainland, adapting so well to an environment greatly altered by humans.
Our flirty flighty fantail. Photo: Craig Mckenzie
The fantail is one of our most recognisable native birds having a long tail which opens into a fan. It has a small head and bill and has two colour forms – pied (yellow-brown with white and black chest bands) and melanistic or black.
They are amazing fliers – they use their broad tails to change direction quickly when hunting for insects. They sometimes hop around upside-down amongst tree ferns and foliage to pick insects from the underside of leaves. Fantails love to eat moths, flies, spiders, wasps and beetles.
Blogger: Reporter for TV3 and Campaign Manager for the kea, Rachel Smalley
Kea get a bad rap. It’s true they can be vandals and thieves and their call is certainly shrill enough to burst an eardrum at 30 paces. But villians? Never. Kea, if anything, are just a little misunderstood.
Like many parrot species, kea are very social. In fact in recent studies, they've shown to have great social intelligence and they perform very well in co-operative tests. Photo: Tom Marshall.
They love company and they love a challenge. In the alpine regions of the Southern Alps, Kea will quickly befriend a tourist – and then steal their lunchbox. They’re smart. In fact, they’re super smart. Kea are considered among the most intelligent birds on the planet so if you enter their habitat, this gregarious and fearless parrot will want to say hello.
Much like the people who populate this country, Kea are chancers. They’re up for the challenge, no hurdle is too high, no task too daunting. They’re smart, nosey and slightly cunning and that’s possibly why they’ve survived for millennia.
Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Emperor Penguin and Wellington Zoo Vet Lisa Argilla.
While not widely recognised as native birds to New Zealand, the occasional appearance of Emperor penguins on our shores as well as New Zealand’s stakehold in Antarctica means that these guys should definitely be considered honorary citizens of New Zealand.
Me and Happy Feet.
The largest of the 18 species of penguins and endemic to Antarctica, Emperors are well known for tolerating some incredible extremes which makes them most worthy of your vote for Bird of the Year.
Males in particular show some amazing tolerance and stamina as they stand for more than 2 months on the ice during the Antarctic winter and incubate their egg. By the time they return to sea after incubation they usually haven’t eaten for 115 days.
They head out to an open sea about 100km away from the colony and spend time here hunting for food. Both males and females can travel up to 1454 km per individual per trip while foraging for food to feed the chick, usually straying only 500km away from the colony.
Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Little Blue Penguin and Dominion Post environment reporter, Kiran Chug
The little blue might be the world’s smallest penguin, but what it lacks in size it certainly makes up for in character. Feisty, and not afraid to let handlers know about it, little blues pack enough charisma into their 25cm high frame to warrant your vote for Bird of the Year.
Little Blue Penguin - twenty five centimetres of attitude
With cute factor to spare, these seabirds are found the length of the country, and their choice of habitats prove they’re also quite smart.
They are after prime coastal real estate. They hunt out the best spots close to the ocean, and make those home.
Yet while they are found up and down our shores, spotting these penguins is not always an easy task.
They spend the day out at sea feeding, coming into shore at dusk. Grabbing a glimpse of them before they waddle into their bush covered nests takes a keen eye.
Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Black Robin & Actress, Lisa Chapell.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I need your help. Cousin Bob just ran off with the love of my life – Cousin Sarah and I’m desperate to get her back. Can you talk to God for me? I thought since you were in heaven, it might be quicker?
Great grandma Old Blue, Photo: Don Merton
It’s so hard these days to even get a date, not like in Great Grandfather Yellow’s day, he was super lucky, he had zero competition and Dad you only had Uncle Sam and Uncle Tom, me I’ve got over a hundred cousins to contend with now. Not that I’m complaining, I know how hard it was for the family when the two legged giants came and the big burnings happened. And the horror of their ferocious attack cats. I still wake up from nightmares of Great Uncle Pete being devoured by a cat. I know there’s no cats anymore, but there could be, it just takes one of the two legged giants to come over to our island and bring the beasts with them. But I know what you’re saying Mum, I worry too much.
Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Yellow-eyed penguin, Seabird advocate and former All Black, Anton Oliver
Hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins) are the noisy penguins. Their name in Maori means ‘noise shouter’; their piercing calls can be heard over the crashing waves.
Yellow-eyed penguin, Photo: Craig Mckenzie
For me there’s something really special about being on a beach at dawn and hearing the shout as they bid farewell and head off to sea for the day. As the sun rises they awaken for the days foraging to gather fish for themselves or for their chicks. These trips can see them swim as far as 50km off shore and then dive as much as 200 times each day to depths of 160m to catch the small fish on the bottom of our ocean floors. No wonder their scientific name also has significance, Megadyptes antipodes meaning large southern diver.
For the next few days, I am going to be based at the Oiled Wildlife Response Unit identifying the feathered victims of the oil spill that occurred over a week ago.
Forest & Bird's Seabird Advocate examines a dead bird at the Oiled Wildlife Response Unit in Tauranga. Photo Kim Westerskov
This grim cargo is being carried ashore at an alarming rate and already we have identified over a thousand birds – some of which are rare and threatened birds, such as the wandering albatross.
After receiving a safety briefing, a high vis vest and an induction from my colleague Al Fleming, I was set to working through the bags and bags of birds that were awaiting identification.
It was devastating to see so many little bodies completely covered in sticky black tar-oil.
Blogger: Central North Island Field Officer, Alan Fleming
We are now into our seventh day of cleaning up the mess that has resulted after the large oil spill off the coast of Tauranga.
The accident – which happened early Wednesday morning - has released a large amount of oil (estimated to be 300 tonnes) which has spread throughout the sea and now fist-sized globules are appearing on Mount Maunganui beach.
So far there are about 200 volunteers at the ready to clean up any birds that are washed ashore.
To date nine oiled birds have been rehabilitated (7 little blue penquins and 2 pied shags), however these are just the birds that have washed ashore.
It is estimated there are 10,000 grey faced petrels, thousands of diving petrels, white-faced storm-petrels and fluttering shearwaters are breeding on nearby islands including off Coromandel Peninsula and feeding in the Bay of Plenty.
Our ocean currents ferry all manner of organisms into our seas and onto our shores, and one such animal that occasionally appears in NZ waters is turtles. Marine turtles have been reported from our waters for more than 100 years, yet, there has been little written about them.
Dan Godoy with a green turtle
Marine turtles have been my interest of study for 6 years now, and with the data I have managed to collect I am slowly beginning to build a picture of their distribution, age-range, and threats in NZ waters. Over the past few years, I’ve collected first and second-hand information about turtle sightings and strandings, so that we can develop some science-based management around these endangered creatures. A portion of my data has come from live rescues of near-dead creatures that are found stranded or floating at sea. Once found the animal is transported immediately to Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium. Of these individuals a large proportion of them are rehabilitated back to health. Of the ones that don’t survive or are found dead, necropsies are undertaken to gather more data.
One of the hurdles to studying these species in NZ is that they’re largely seen as occasional visitors or wayward stragglers, and do not live in our waters permanently. So, for the most part they remain largely unstudied. What I have discovered is that although green turtles don’t breed here, some may spend a part of their life cycle inhabiting our waters in the Upper North Island.
There are 5 species of marine turtle that have been found in NZ: the green, hawksbill, leatherback, olive ridley, and loggerhead. All of them are listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. http://www.iucnredlist.org/.
Generally speaking, it is the first part of a turtle’s life cycle that is the most trying – it is estimated less than 1% make it to adult hood. Once (green) turtles reach maturity at an age of 25-35 years old, it is really only humans that are their biggest threat. Human activities such as pollution and fishing are contributing to the overall decline of turtles in the Pacific. Turtles are unfortunately prone to entanglement by fishing nets and they are especially susceptible to ingesting plastic and other marine debris. For example, leatherback turtles are known to ingest plastic bags because they look very much like jelly-fish - one of their prey items. The more we learn about marine turtles in NZ the better we can understand their life cycle which will contribute to their conservation. As a result of this study and increased awareness of marine turtles in New Zealand, we will be better informed to make appropriate decisions for the management of these endangered species
We have all heard of the Biodiversity Crisis, but one of the things that particularly concerns me is the Amphibian Extinction Crisis. Yes, I know, just another picture of doom and gloom, but this one is particularly bad and can be fixed relatively easily.
Our critically endangered Archey's frog.
According to the recent book by the Zoological Society of London, Evolution Lost 25% of all mammal species are threatened, 13% of bird species, 15% of fish species and 41% of amphibians.
So we really are looking at an extinction crisis – and one that is caused by a series of well known causes ……… habitat loss, pollution, pesticides, disease and climate change.
