Characteristics of the New Zealand Avifauna

Forest and Bird, Issue 295, 1 February 2000, Page 35

Characteristics of the New Zealand Avifauna

ew Zealand’s bird fauna is dominated by three main elements: the unique land birds, the tube-nosed seabirds and the migratory waders. For examples, see kiwi at left, northern royal albatross at centre, and godwits, right. The members of the first group are the product of isolation, but this has been no impediment to the seabirds and waders. New Zealand is a mecca and refuge for the oceanic seabirds (albatrosses, petrels and other procellariiforms) which range widely at sea to feed but must find land on which to nest. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s species of tube-nosed seabirds are found in Australian and New Zealand waters. New Zealand has a greater diversity of these birds than any other country of a similar size, and the numbers of individuals are astounding. About 2.8 million pairs of sooty shearwaters breed at the tiny Snares Islands, 300 km south of Invercargill. This is said to be more procellariiforms than nest in all the British Isles (partly reflecting the relative unimportance of these birds in Britain as in many other northern hemisphere countries). Similarly, isolation has been irrelevant for the charadriiform wading birds, many of which are long-distance migrants. Numerous species of waders breed in the northern hemisphere and spend the northern winter benefiting from New Zealand’s summertime abundance of food. Certain of these trans-equatorial migrants arrive in such great numbers that they are ecologically important. Some of our waders migrate shorter distances across the Tasman Sea or within New Zealand, and a few are sedentary.