Birds of a Feather, Let’s Vote Together

The ballots are in. Now we wait to see which bird rules the roost.

The year’s third-most-anticipated election is over. Voting has closed in Forest & Bird’s 2026 Bird of the Year, and somewhere in the depths of the ballot box, Aotearoa’s next celebrity is waiting to be crowned.

For the past few weeks, more than 70 native birds have been competing for the title, complete with campaign managers, endorsements, and increasingly committed supporters. But behind the memes and electoral theatre sits a more serious purpose: raising awareness of Aotearoa’s native birdlife and the threats facing it.

Around 80% of the country’s native species are at risk of extinction, one of the highest proportions of threatened plants and animals in the world. Habitat loss driven by urbanisation, agricultural intensification and wetland drainage, alongside climate change and introduced predators such as stoats, rats, and possums, continues to put pressure on native wildlife. 

For a competition built around picking favourites, Bird of the Year has always been partly about making sure there are still birds around to pick from.

Last year, the kārearea (New Zealand falcon) took the title. In 2024, the hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) wore the crown, while 2023 belonged to the pūteketeke (Australian crested grebe).

This year, Te Herenga Waka threw its weight behind the korimako.

Sustainability Engagement Co-ordinator Andrea Marsden had been waiting almost six years for a position as bird campaign manager to become available. When the chance finally arrived, she chose the korimako due to its incredible comeback story. 

Once locally extinct in Wellington, korimako returned to the region following conservation efforts centred around Zealandia, where korimako began re-establishing in the early 2000s. They can now be routinely seen and heard in the greener parts of the city.

“We like sustainability wins,” Marsden said. “It’s not all doom and gloom…When we support programs and places like Zealandia, we can bring these birds back and help them flourish.”

Lured by “huge quantities” of cake at the campus launch party, more than 108 students cast a Bird of the Year vote. The event also encouraged students to enrol ahead of the upcoming general election. 

“We’re promoting the idea of this as a warm-up for the election,” Marsden said. 

The timing gave the campaign a slightly bigger purpose. Students were being asked to choose between birds while also being reminded of another ballot looming later this year. One result will determine which native species gets bragging rights and a year of increased intense media attention. The other has somewhat broader consequences.

But Bird of the Year also offers a reminder of what can happen when public attention arrives too late.

Marsden points to the two taxidermied huia displayed on the second floor of Ngā Mokopuna. The now-extinct birds were mysteriously recovered from a biology department closet almost twenty years ago and now sit inside a carefully controlled display case, protected from humidity and light deterioration.

Their presence makes for a slightly sobering counterpoint to the cheerfulness of an election campaign. There are no conservation campaigns left to run for the huia.

The exhibition also draws attention to relationships between native species, te reo Māori and mātauranga, and to the importance of keeping them present in public consciousness. Preservation is easier when something is still alive. Once it is behind glass, the task becomes remembering what was lost.

The exhibition is a reminder that preservation cannot rely on putting something behind glass. Keeping species, languages, and cultural knowledge alive also means keeping them visible, talked about, and embedded in community life.

For now, though, the living birds are still campaigning—or, at least, their human representatives have finished doing so.

While we wait for the official result, here’s a reminder of some of the candidates Wellingtonians had on their ballots—and what your vote may say about you.

Korimako (Bellbird)

Te Herenga Waka’s candidate of choice, the korimako—also known as the makomako or kōmako—has a varied and melodious song, often singing in duet. 

Males are olive green, while females are olive brown with a pale-yellow stripe from the bill to the eye. As the bird matures, their eye colour changes from brown to red. 

Korimako belong to the honeyeater family and have a special tongue that resembles a toothbrush, allowing them to collect sweet nectar from flowers. When they fly, they make a distinct whirring sound caused by a notch in one of their primary wing feathers. 

Korimako also play an important role in the pollination of native plants, and is this year’s favourite for Te Herenga Waka. The korimako’s current conservation status is Doing OK.

If you voted for the korimako: You love a sweet treat, you sing in the shower, your favourite colour is green, you’re in your comeback era, and Otis is your favourite news writer.

Toutouwai (New Zealand Robin/North Island Robin) 

The sparrow-sized toutouwai is a cunning and curious forager, with the male being the prominent songster. They agitate leaf matter with their feet, wings, and tail disturbing prey insects such as weta, earthworms, stick insects, and even tiny aphids. 

Males are dark grey-blue-black with a pale patch over their chest and belly, while the females and juveniles come in paler shades of grey with white bellies. The toutouwai often comes close to people, and has even been known to land on a boot tip, waiting for insects to be uncovered. 

This year, the bird was endorsed both by Zealandia and the Wellington City Council for the competition. The toutouwai’s current conservation status is In Some Trouble.

If you voted for the  toutouwai: You’re the shortest in the friend group, you’re an extrovert, you have a good memory, you love bugs, and Ali is your favourite news writer.

Takahē (South Island Takahē)

The takahē is a flightless bird often confused with the pūkeko, of whom they are a distant relative. Larger than a pukeko, they have stout red legs and a large red beak, with plumage shifting from deep royal blue through turquoise, to olive green across the wings. 

They live for 16 to 18 years in the wild and up to 22 years on sanctuary sites. Takahē eat mostly starchy leaf bases from tussock grasses, sedges, and rushes, making them vegetarian. They live in pairs or small family groups and raise only one or two chicks a year, Wellington’s Zealandia famously home to resident love birds Bendigo and Waitaa. 

South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu value takahē as taonga (treasure). The takahē’s conservation status is in In Serious Trouble.

If you voted for the takahē: You love a bright accessory, you’re vegetarian, you keep your circle small, family is your everything, and Phoebe is your favourite news writer.

Kākā

The kākā is a large, forest dwelling parrot that is a common site in Wellington city’s green belt. The olive-brown parrot boasts a red-orange underwing with a deep crimson belly and crimson under-tail coverts. 

They are adept fliers and obtain all their food from trees, enjoying seeds, fruit, nectar, sap, honeydew, and tree-dwelling invertebrates. 

Kākā tend to gather in the early morning and late evening to spend time in noisy groups, and breed mostly in the Spring and Summer. The female alone incubates the eggs and cares for the chicks, but is fed by the male through the breeding season. 

The kākā’s conservation status is In Some Trouble.

If you voted for kākā: You have a big friend group, you like to party, you’re a bit hippie, you’re an early riser, and Dan is your favourite news writer.

Ruru (Morepork)

The ruru is a small, dark, forest-dwelling owl who’s “more-pork” cry can often be heard in the evenings in Wellington’s more vegetated suburbs. 

The ruru is recognisable by its striking yellow eyes set into deep facial disks on either side of a sharply hooked bill. Its diet consists of insects, small mammals, and birds, which it hunts alone at night. 

The ruru has acute hearing and a sensitivity to light, but also the ability to turn its head through 270 degrees. Ruru nest in tree cavities, where depending on food supply often only one chick survives, eating its siblings. 

The ruru’s conservation status is Doing OK.

If you voted for ruru: You stay up late, you absorbed your twin in the womb, you’re a little bit goth, you have 20/20 vision, and Holly is your favourite news writer.

The campaigning is finished, the ballots are cast, and the cake has presumably been eaten. All that remains is to find out which bird Aotearoa has chosen.

Whoever takes the title, Wellington’s contenders make a decent argument for paying attention to what is already outside our windows. The korimako’s return to the city shows what conservation can recover. The huia upstairs in Ngā Mokopuna shows what it cannot.

Bird of the Year voting may be over, but election season isn’t. The VUWSA Executive Election runs from 21 to 24 September, followed by the General Election on 7 November. If you’re eligible to vote in the General Election, make sure you’re enrolled by 25 October.