Bird of the Year battle begins
It is the title birds covet, and feathers are already ruffling as the fight to be Bird of the Year takes flight.
Voting opens today, and campaigners are aggressively backing their birds with top-secret strategies and bird coalitions.
The annual pageant is run by Forest & Bird to raise awareness of native birds and the threats they face.
Whio supporters said their campaign required ‘‘high-level security clearance’’. ‘‘Operation Underduck will use a top-secret mission theme to engage New Zealanders to get whio to number one in an election upset,’’ Whio Forever co-ordinator Jana Beer said. ‘‘In 2017, an unashamedly ‘wreckless’ candidate was elected [kea], while in 2018 a clumsy, gluttonous drunk was elected [kereru¯ ].’’
Operation Underduck planned to share ‘‘intelligence information’’ on the other bird candidates, Beer said.
This year’s election has a new voting system – voters can select up to five birds in order of preference – and hihi and shore plover have formed a coalition to win in the new proportional representation voting system. ‘‘We will be asking for a #1 vote for hihi, #2 for shore plover,’’ hihi campaigner Stuart Attwood said.
Hihi were ‘‘a particularly horny bird’’, he said. ‘‘The males’ testicles are four times larger than they should be for a bird of its size.’’
Tu¯ turuatu (shore plover) campaigner Tara Swan said that with just 250 left, the little-known bird was vulnerable to predators.
They are ‘‘the ultimate bandit, the cutest potato’’, campaigner Karley Skinner said.
Auckland Museum is backing the spotted shag, with the tagline: ‘‘The spotted shag: looking for love, let’s get shags shagging again’’.
It was not ‘‘the most glam of birds’’ but it needed saving too, museum content manager Olivia Boswell said. ‘‘If the spotted shag was on Tinder, its bio might read: Currently I live in the Hauraki Gulf but I might have to look for another place to live soon. I like fish and other fishy food.’’
‘‘I like craning my neck to look at things, long flights in the air, romantic underwater dives, long hot days sunning on the rocks and ocean trivia nights . . . I am not desperate or anything but I have been looking for a mate for a while now.’’
Pohowera (banded dotterel) campaigner George Hobson, 16, who has been campaigning for the bird for five years, said it was a clear winner with ‘‘huge personality’’ for such a tiny bird. ‘‘Their chicks are basically fluffballs on legs.’’ They were as endangered as some species of kiwi but got nowhere near the attention or funding, he said.
Team Hoiho said the bird was ‘‘already wearing a gold crown’’.
‘‘We came out of the bush to hear that kereru¯ had won, and we decided then and there these flappy, forest birds needed to step aside,’’ they said. ‘‘We expect to win by a landslide.’’ Korimako (bellbird) supporter Jon Anderson said it was his first year campaigning for the modest and melodious bellbird. ‘‘If I were a bird, that is probably who I would be; I am always singing but I am not as brash as the tui. My wife, in comparison, would be a kereru¯ , because she is just as much a foodie.’’
Team Rockhopper is running ‘‘an eyebrow-raising’’ campaign, and plans to ruffle some feathers, rockhopper campaigner and ‘‘chief bird nerd’’ Emma Rawson said.
‘‘A penguin has never won Bird of the Year and the little rockhopper, battling it out on the front line of global warming, is worthy of the crown.’’
Rock wren (pı¯wauwau) are New Zealand’s only fully alpine bird species, an ‘‘underbird’’ few people knew about, campaigner Anna Clark said. ‘‘Their vulnerability to environmental changes convinces us this bird desperately needs publicity.’’
But campaigner Jennifer Branje said no other bird deserved glory as much as the South Island ko¯kako, which was once declared extinct – until one was seen in Reefton in 2007.
‘‘Unlike other Bird of the Year candidates, the South Island ko¯ kako had a huge hurdle to overcome to even make it to the start line,’’ she said. Branje approached Forest & Bird to have the ko¯ kako included in the vote, in the hope more people might spot one.
Team Ko¯ tare (sacred kingfisher) say their bird is a deserving ‘‘New Zealand sporting icon’’. The ko¯ tare is considered holy in Polynesian culture and is believed to control waves, campaigner Franc¸ ois Olivier said.
The harrier hawk could be the most misunderstood pest control force in the country. ‘‘Although they are not endangered, endemic or cute, they are an iconic New Zealand bird that provides both a service to the country and wonderful opportunity to observe the world’s largest harrier,’’ campaigner Scott Bowman of Oxford Bird Rescue said.
London-based Kiwi Alec Dawson, campaigning for the ha¯ koakoa (arctic skua) from afar, said the bird had mid-air grabs showing skills ‘‘an All Black would be proud of’’.
‘‘It is nature’s pirate, as it eats by stealing food from other birds.’’
Doing OK in New Zealand, ha¯ koakoa populations have seriously declined in other parts of the world, due to climate change, Dawson said.
The 2018 election crowned the kereru¯ and campaigner Marc Daalder thinks it has another shot.
‘‘Just like all of us, the kereru¯ isn’t perfect. Sometimes it gets a little tipsy – enough to fall out of trees.’’
Bird of the Year voting runs until November 10.