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New Zealand's most famous bird of 2023 has one of its best strongholds on our home lake.
In 2023, Forest & Bird's annual 'Bird of the Year' competition turned into 'Bird of the Century' to mark the organisation's 100th birthday — and the winner surprised almost everyone outside Central Otago. The pūteketeke, or Australasian crested grebe, took the crown after comedian John Oliver launched an 'alarmingly aggressive' international campaign on its behalf, complete with billboards in Tokyo and Paris and a giant grebe puppet on American television. It won by a landslide: over 290,000 votes, more than the next nine birds combined.
What most of Oliver's audience never realised: one of the pūteketeke's best success stories is happening right here on Lake Wānaka.
Pūteketeke are unmistakable once you know what to look for — a slender neck, sharp black bill, and a double black crest with chestnut cheek frills flared dramatically during courtship 'weed dances.' Chicks ride around tucked into their parents' back feathers, dipping in and out of the water to learn to swim and fish. It's an undeniably charming life cycle, but a fragile one: nationwide numbers dropped to around 200 birds in the 1980s, hit hard by introduced predators, boat wake disturbing nests, and fluctuating lake levels washing floating nests away.
The turnaround for this species has a lot to do with Lake Wānaka specifically. Since 2013, the Lake Wānaka Grebe Project — started by Forest & Bird volunteer John Darby with a single floating nest platform — has grown to fifteen active platforms anchored along the lake's sheltered margins. Anchored rather than shore-fixed, the platforms rise and fall with the water level instead of getting swamped or stranded. Over the past decade, they've helped fledge more than 500 grebe chicks.
Pūteketeke nest between September and March, often close to willow branches or reed beds around quieter bays. A pair diving in unison, or a parent gliding past with a stripy-headed chick riding on its back, is one of the more special sightings out on the lake — and a reminder that the bird an American comedian made famous is, for us, simply a local.
Keep an eye out for pūteketeke on the water — the lake is calm enough to spot them close in.
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