NZ Pipit - backed by the Breeze for Bird of the Year

Louise from Woburn

Very exciting to be on the radio yesterday talking with the Breeze about the New Zealand pipit/pīhoihoi (Anthus novaeseelandiae). The Breeze are backing the pipit for Bird of the Year. I clocked a couple of pipits around the Wainuiomata Coast a few weeks back, it was my first sighting of them, and the first recording of them on iNaturalist for Lower Hutt (although there are 80 observations for the Wellington Region). They look a little plain, blending well with their preferred open tussocky rocky beach/river environment, and have a call like a squeaking shopping trolley wheel, but they have the most endearing strut where as they walk they bob their tails up and down - very funky. Unfortunately this endemic bird is in decline.