Twenty years of 'Bird of the Year' in one book

RNZ News

8 hours ago

The Australasian Crested Grebe won Bird of the Century in 2023.
Photo:
Dave Thomas
E koekoe te tūī, e ketekete te kākā, e kūkū te kererū - The tūī chatters, the kākā cackles and the kererū coos.
That is a whakataukī (proverb) mentioning just three of the 80 birds - and one bat - included in the new
Bird of the Year
book.
Writer Ellen Rykers, the former campaign lead, told
Saturday Morning
that New Zealand's largest book publisher, Penguin Random House, had asked Forest & Bird to turn the competition into a book subject.
"At the time, I was part of the team organising
Bird of the Year
and, with my background in science writing, it just sort of seemed like a natural fit for me to take on this project," she said.
Rykers said the book was a "feast for the eyes", with more than a dozen illustrators, who were selected, "not only because they draw beautiful birds, but because they also are dedicated to supporting conservation through their work".
"Even if you don't dive into the words, it's just beautiful to look at."
Photo:
Supplied / Penguin Books New Zealand
To decide which native birds - and bat - were included, Rykers went back through the last 20 years of the
Bird of the Year
competition and chose ones that had interesting stories - whether they be related to the competition - from television host John Oliver and
rumours of Russian interference
to controversial mammalian infiltration or their histories.
"I mean, it's all fun and humorous, but there is that kind of serious undertone," she said. "More than 80 percent of our native birds are at risk or threatened with extinction, but at the end of the day, I hope that people read it and fall in love, and feel hopeful, because a lot of the stories are about people who are out there on the ground, making a difference."
Ellen Rykers
Photo:
RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Rykers added the three main things threatening our manu were predators, habitat loss and climate change.
However, she said the
Bird of the Year
competition had become a fundraiser for Forest & Bird, particularly in 2023, when the pūteketeke, also known as the Australasian crested grebe, was named the
Bird of the Century
, after a campaign by Oliver.
The competition raised
more than $1.2 million
.
"Forest & Bird didn't really have any idea, ahead of time, exactly the scale of the campaign. We knew that it would be beyond anything that we'd ever seen before and we knew that there would be sort of international aspects, but we didn't realise that he'd be paying for billboards on the busiest intersection in Tokyo and on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
"That really propelled quite an unknown bird - an under the radar bird or an 'underbird' - into the spotlight."
A shot from US comedian John Oliver's segment on New Zealand's Bird of the Year on 5 November 2023.
Photo:
Screengrab
Rykers said it did not start out that way.
"It didn't raise any money back in 2005, when it started, but it has become a way for people to express that love for birds, by supporting them financially, as well as with their vote."
The competition had also grown considerably since then.
"I think partly it's because we're a nation of birdlovers and we have named ourselves after one of our national birds, so it's really part of our identity as New Zealanders, but we also don't like to take ourselves too seriously, so there's that cheeky quality, I think, that really appeals.
"Those two kind of things, I think, have really propelled
Bird of the Year
to become a fixture on our annual calendar."
There had been scandals in the competition - even to the origin of
Bird of the Year
, which was when RNZ's
Morning Report
had suggested getting rid of the daily bird call.
"This provoked such an outrage," Rykers said. "Michael Szabo, who was the communications manager at Forest & Bird at the time, took notice of this and he listened to all these people sending in messages about all the birds that they loved.
"He had come across this concept of a
Bird of the Year
competition working in Europe... and he thought, 'Okay, this is a great opportunity to give this a go here in New Zealand'."
Including the pekapeka-tou-roa - or the long-tailed bat - was another one.
"There was a Forest & Bird staff member, Debs Martin, who had been campaigning quietly for its inclusion for a long time.
"At the same time, a high school teacher, Peter Wills, he had the exact same idea. 'Why don't we put the pekapeka-tou-roa in
Bird of the Year
?', and so he and his students, and a bat expert took on that campaign.
"We only have a couple of native bat species, so there's never going to be a
Bat of the Year
, but they face many of the same threats that our native birds do."
There had been voting scandals - in 2015, two teenage girls tried to rig the results in favour of the kōkako. In 2018, one person voted for the shag more than 3000 times, while in 2017, fake email accounts were created to bolster support for the white-faced heron.
In 2020,
about 1500 fraudulent votes
were cast for the kiwi pukupuku, but Rykers said the first scandal actually happened in 2010.
"Somehow, it infiltrated an online community of people really passionate about the kākāriki.
"At the time, the
Bird of the Year
website was admittedly quite flimsy... and they just saw this huge explosion in votes that was someone manipulating the numbers.
"They were quite nervous about admitting that and so they didn't actually say anything until the year after."
Voting for the 2025
Bird of the Year
competition will open on 15 September.
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