The birds in the garden and just beyond
- Birkenhead Butterflies
- Sep 29
- 5 min read
This neighbourhood is supporting lots of species
September 2025
I have not written much about the birds in the garden, which is a huge oversight, because the birdlife really defines this place. I mentioned the kaka a few months ago and the tui nest last summer, but that is about it. To make up for it, this post is going to be a birdfest!
The number one species in this garden is the kereru. Within a day of moving in, there was a kereru eating fresh magnolia leaves in the front garden. Now, a year on, they are back in the magnolia. They nest in next door's kanuka trees and we have not tired of seeing them. Each sighting, whether in one of our puriri, resting in the kanuka or munching on the kōwhai, is special.
Kōtare / kingfishers were regular visitors last spring, but they prefer next door (the other side), where they can watch tasty snacks - rainbow skinks - moving through the short grass before swooping down to take them. They are starting to make territorial calls, a bark-like sound, so hopefully they will be breeding again soon. The babies are so cute!
Often unseen, but frequently heard are the riroriro / grey warblers, but the chattering pīwakawaka / fantails are a lot friendlier. They both feed on insects. The fantails have really taken to the new butterfly garden beds, so they must be a good source of food. As someone who is very susceptible to mosquitoes, I am happy that they spend so much time around and I hope they will nest in the garden.
The kākā have not been back to the garden and I have not seen or heard them in the past month. They are still around Auckland, just not in this neck of the woods. Other natives I have not seen, but heard include the ruru, who sometimes calls from a tree at the side of the house, and the long-tailed cuckoos further down the valley. In fact, I heard the first cuckoo of the season today: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/317470535
The tui are usually around, but it took a long time for them to become interested in our sugar water feeders this winter. In the old garden tui would be feeding, along with silvereyes, from June, but they didn't come to the feeders here in Birkenhead with any regularity until the start of August. I assume it means that there are natural food sources around for them for most of the winter months, which is great. However, once they came, they brought their friends and at least a dozen tui turned up at a time and cleared out a bowl of sugar water in under half an hour. The maximum we had seen before in our little front garden in Hillcrest was three. Here, I think we cleared the whole valley out of tui when a fresh bowl went out! Now the local kōwhai are starting to flower, we will stop feeding them.
The other nectar feeder in the garden are the tauhou / silvereyes. They did not get much of a look in with the sugar water, as the tui chased them off, but they had better luck competing with the sparrows for the fat blocks. They may have nested in the garden last year and we were too busy to notice, but we enjoyed seeing the fledgling (singular) as it hopped / flopped around the garden.
In terms of non-native birds, spotted doves live locally, but surprisingly the other introduced species usually seen in local gardens are a lot less common here than they were in Hillcrest. House sparrows, greenfinches and chaffinches have come in to the garden really only for the winter food we have put out - seeds and fat blocks - over the last couple of months. I enjoy seeing the finches, having come from their original country of origin myself, and I was delighted to find that a pair of goldfinches live year-round next door too (back to the kereru side). They have been coming into our garden recently for the seed capsules from the liquidamber, which are also a favourite of the eastern rosellas. The rosellas definitely add some colour and volume to the neighbourhood. My young daughter loves seeing them and until we create a safe mainland environment for kakariki, one of our endemic parrots, I am happy to have the rosellas around.
Talking of introduced species, Birkenhead has the most cocky, entitled blackbirds I have ever encountered. We cannot keep them out of the house and the males shadow me as soon as I step outside in the hope of disturbed ground as I create the butterfly garden or plant natives. They haven't figured out that they are less likely to get lucky if I have a basket of washing in my arms. A couple of pairs nested in the garden last year so crossed fingers we will have fledglings this year as well. Today a male was quietly singing - beak closed - as it waited for me to get out of the way as I put some plants into a border. That was pretty special - like someone humming to themselves. I didn't know they could do that!
Not in the garden, but in Soldiers Bay where our stream runs down to, there has been footage this month of spotless crake, thanks to Pest Free Kaipātiki. I knew there were banded rail, because of a few sightings on iNaturalist, but not this other secretive wetland bird. They are both very vulnerable to cats, rats and stoats. This location has some of the highest recorded rat populations in the area, also captured on film, so the birds are doing well to survive. Ground-nesting birds such as these are susceptible to hedgehogs as well, but we have taken the decision not to specifically target them in our garden, which takes a bigger trap than what we currently have. Hedgehogs fly under the predator radar, much like cats, but both are dreadful to have anywhere near aquatic birds. Thanks to the work of volunteers in the area, they are giving these beautiful native birds a chance to survive.
And we will do our bit too. The plants in the bush we have planted will add to the food and shelter for these woodland and backyard birds in years to come. They are a joy and watching them never gets old.
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