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The boldest, friendliest bird in the forest is also one of the smallest — and it isn't shy about coming to say hello.
The piwakawaka, or fantail, is one of New Zealand's best-known native birds, and it's easy to see why: unlike most wild birds, it will often approach within a metre or two of a person standing still. Found from sea level right up to the snowline, fantails live in native forest, scrubland, farmland, and gardens across the country — Mou Waho included. Most have the common pied colouring: a greyish head, bold white eyebrows, a cinnamon breast, and a long black-and-white tail fanned out behind them. A rarer all-black form makes up around five percent of the population in the South Island.
It isn't following you out of friendliness. It's following you for the insects your footsteps disturb.
A fantail trailing a walker along the track isn't being sociable so much as opportunistic. Fantails hunt using three main techniques: hawking insects from a perch in open ground, flushing them out of dense foliage by flying erratically through it, and — the one trampers see most — feeding on whatever gets stirred up by a larger animal moving through the bush. Their broad, fan-shaped tail lets them snap into a new direction mid-air the instant an insect breaks cover.
Fantails are relentless parents. Chicks are fed roughly every ten minutes throughout daylight hours — close to a hundred feedings a day — and a breeding pair can raise several clutches in a single season. Nests are woven from moss, fine wood fibres, and grass, bound together with spiderweb and tucked under sheltering foliage. It's a lot of effort for a bird that weighs about as much as a two-dollar coin.
In Māori tradition, the piwakawaka isn't only a cheerful garden visitor — it plays a part in one of the darker stories in Māori mythology, waking a goddess at the critical moment and bringing death into the world. It's an odd contrast to the bird's real-life reputation: New Zealanders voted it Bird of the Year in 2006, largely on the strength of its cheerful, fearless charm. Of all the birds on Mou Waho, it's usually the least shy of the lot — stand still on the track up to Arethusa Pool for even a few seconds and there's a good chance one will come to check out what you've disturbed.
Watch for one on our full-day lake tour, which stops at Mou Waho.
