In the South Island, about one in 20 fantails is a black morph, this chocolate brown guy with a grey/black head. It’s the same species (Rhipidura fuliginosa) as the more common pied morph, it’s just a genetic anomaly. Oddly, the fantail’s scientific name is more suggestive of the uncommon black morph than it is of [...]
Motueka
It’s not uncommon to see pukeko (Porphyrio melanotus) roaming paddocks. They’ve done well following European settlement; land cleared for agriculture is a favourite habitat, especially when there’s some sort of waterway nearby.
Along with the birdlife, beautiful beaches and mountainscapes, the Tasman district has a healthy (cough) donut population. These guys live their short, delicious lives racked up in the cabinet at the Smoking Barrel in Motueka, followed by a brief migration to plate, then stomach. The different morphs are environmental in origin, even the Loaded Donut [...]
Kōtuku-ngutupapa is the Maori name for the royal spoonbill (Platalea regia), which is a fairly recent arrival to New Zealand. Spoonbills were first recorded in the North Island in the 1860s, and they started breeding at Okarito on the West Coast in the late 1940s. Today, spoonbills can often be seen feeding on the mudflats [...]
This is a male shoveler (Anas rhynchotis), although from a distance, you could mistake it for a mallard/grey duck. In fact, the female shoveler looks an awful lot like a grey duck, but with a bigger, wider bill. They’re filter feeders, sucking water through the very fine comb-like fringes on the edges of their bills.
This black-fronted tern/tara pirohe (Chlidonias albostriatus) was one of a flock swooping around the Motueka River bridge feeding on flying insects. Black-fronted terns are regarded as primarily a species of the eastern and southern coasts of the South Island, breeding on braided rivers, then moving to the coast outside of the breeding season. The Motueka [...]
The white heron/kōtuku (Ardea alba modesta) is rare in New Zealand and looks likely to stay that way. The New Zealand Encyclopedia of 1966 states there were about 20 pairs nesting on the West Coast of the South Island, and nzbirdsonline.org.nz says that there are now about 30 pairs nesting each breeding season. That’s an [...]
The Baton Valley is remote, covered in native New Zealand bush, and the road up to it is shingle. So this guy is a bit overdressed for the environment. Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) in New Zealand are usually escapees from farms or lifestyle blocks, although there are some isolated feral populations. The male is all showmanship [...]
This is the New Zealand pipit/ pīhoihoi (Anthus novaeseelandiae), which is a bit smaller than a song thrush, about 16-19 cm long compared to the thrush’s 20-24 cm. Pipits belong to a family of birds called wagtails, because they kind of wag their tails as they walk. Numbers in New Zealand are over 100,000 but [...]
Most of the common names for Zosterops lateralis are based on its most striking feature: the rings around the eyes of the adults. Silvereye, wax-eye, white-eye. Even its genus name, Zosterops, refers to the eye ring: it means “eye girdle”. Looking beyond the bright eye ring, though, the silvereye has an astonishing array of striking [...]
