Bird of the Year campaigns to ruffle feathers as competition gets strategic

Sunday, 27 October 2019

Kererū thrive on fruiting native trees and shrubs. Video first published in October 2018.

It's the title all birds covet, and feathers are already ruffling as the fight to be Bird of the Year takes flight.

Voting opens on Monday, and campaigners are aggressively backing their birds with top-secret campaign strategies and bird coalitions.

The annual pageant is run by Forest and Bird to raise awareness of New Zealand's native birds and the threats they face.

Whio campaigners said their campaign required 'high-level security clearance'.

* Kererū takes out Bird of the Year honours for 2018

Whio detectives of 'operation underduck' - a campaign for Bird of the Year. Kimberly Burgess, Catherine Buck, Jana Beer and Jessica Rodger.

* Fraudulent Bird of the Year votes ruffle feathers**

'Operation Underduck will use a top-secret mission theme to engage New Zealanders to get whio to number one in an unexpected election upset,' Whio Forever co-ordinator Jana Beer said.

Tuturuatu (shore plover) campaigner and artist Karley Skinner made this meme of the bird as The Legend of Zorro.

'In 2017, an unashamedly wreckless candidate was elected [kea], while in 2018 a clumsy, gluttonous drunk was elected [kererū].'

Operation Underduck plans 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.

George Hobson, 16, has campaigned for the banded dotterel for five years.

'We will be asking for a #1 vote for Hihi #2 for shore plover,' Hihi campaigner Stuart Attwood said.

Attwood said Hihi are 'a particularly horny bird'.

Auckland Museum campaign managers for spotted shag for bird of the year, Olivia Boswell, Matt Rayner, Josie Galbraith holding a Spotted Shag specimen .

'The males testicles are four times larger than they should be for a bird of its size.'

They are also the only species of bird that will mate face to face.

Tūturuatu (shore plover) campaigner Tara Swan said with just 250 left, the little-known bird was vulnerable to predators.

They're 'the ultimate bandit, the cutest potato', campaigner Karley Skinner said.

Auckland Museum are behind the campaign for the spotted shag, with the tagline: 'The spotted shag: looking for love, let's get shags shagging again'.

George Hobson at Eastbourne, where a protected area has been created for the banded dotterel.

It wasn't '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'm not desperate or anything, but I've been looking for a mate for a while now'.'

Jon Anderson is the campaign manager for korimako New Zealand bell bird for Bird of the Year.

Pohowera (banded dotterel) campaigner George Hobson, 16, who has been campaigning for the bird for five years, said it's a clear winner with 'huge personality' for such a tiny bird.

'Their chicks are basically fluffballs on legs.'

Sadly, they were as endangered as some species of kiwi but got nowhere near the same amount of attention or funding, he said.

Rockhopper, the smallest crested penguin at 45cm tall, have declined by 30 per cent in 30 years and their decline is linked to rising sea temperatures.

Team Hoiho said the bird was 'already wearing a gold crown'.

'We came out of the bush to hear that kererū had won, and we decided then and there that these flappy, forest birds needed to step aside,' they said.

'We do expect to win by a landslide.'

Korimako (bellbird) campaigner Jon Anderson said it's his first year campaigning for the modest and melodious bellbird.

Due to their speed and agility, the kōtare (sacred kingfisher) is a 'deserved New Zealand sporting icon', their campaigner says.

'If I were a bird, that's probably who I'd be; I'm always singing, but I'm not as brash as the tūī.

Scott Bowman of Oxford Bird Rescue with a Harrier Hawk. Bowman is backing the Harrier Hawk for Bird of the Year.

'My wife, in comparison, would be a kererū, because she's 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 (pīwauwau) are NZ's only fully alpine bird species, an 'underbird' few people knew about, campaigner Anna Clark said.

Banded dotterel numbers are estimated to have fallen 50,000 to 19,000 in recent years, and they're as endangered as some species of kiwi but get nowhere near the same amount of funding, campaigner George Hobson said.

'Their vulnerability to environmental changes convinces us that this is a bird that desperately needs some publicity.'

But campaigner Jennifer Branje said no other bird deserved such glory as the South Island kōkako, which was once declared extinct - until one was seen in Reefton in 2007.

'Unlike other Bird of the Year candidates, the South Island kōkako had a huge hurdle to overcome to even make it to the start line,' she said.

Kererū isn't as flashy as the piwakawaka, as iconic as the kiwi or as media-savvy as the kākāpō, but it's 'the kind of bird you'd want to have a pint with', campaigner Marc Daalder says.

Branje approached Forest and Bird to have the kōkako included in the vote, in the hope that more people might spot one.

Team Kōtare (sacred kingfisher) say their bird is a deserving 'New Zealand sporting icon'.

The kōtare is considered holy in Polynesian culture and are believed to have control over waves, campaigner Françios 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 worlds largest harrier,' campaigner Scott Bowman of Oxford Bird Rescue said.

London-based Kiwi Alec Dawson, campaigning for the hākoakoa (arctic skua) from afar, said the bird has 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 okay in New Zealand, hākoakoa populations have seriously declined in other parts of the world, due to climate change, Dawson said.

The 2018 election crowned the kererū as the country's finest bird, and campaigner Marc Daalder thinks it has another shot.

'Just like all of us, the kererū isn't perfect. Sometimes it gets a little tipsy – enough to fall out of trees.'

Daalder said the kererū was 'the kind of bird you'd want to have a pint with – not a celebrity, but a mate'.

'Last year's electorate saw that the kererū was the down-to-earth sort of bird that best represents New Zealand.'

Bird of the Year voting opens on Monday until November 10.