Haven't seen a question on who will win bird of the year? Only asking after seeing/reading about John Oliver's campaign this year 😂 will be interesting to see the influence (or not) of his campaign on the results

@JulianLees No, I haven't made one this year

@NcyRocks

https://manifold.markets/JulianLees/john-olivers-campaign-for-puteketek?r=SnVsaWFuTGVlcw

John Oliver's campaign for pūteketeke to win New Zealand's Bird of the Year in 2023 will precede it winning the award

45% chance. Resolves YES if pūteketeke wins 2023 bird of the year. Otherwise resolves NO Bird of the year (anyone with an email address can enter): https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/ [link preview]New Zealand's Forest and Birds annual Bird of the Year is back. This year dubbed Bird of the Century for the organisation's centenary, John Oliver has shown an active interest in supporting the lesser known pūteketeke... Will his influence be enough to knock off past winners: 2022 Rock wren 2021 Long-tailed bat 2020 Kākāpō 2019 Yellow-eyed penguin 2018 Kererū 2017 Kea 2016 Kōkako 2015 Bar-tailed godwit 2014 Fairy tern 2013 Yellowhead 2012 New Zealand falcon 2011 Pūkeko 2010 Kākāriki 2009 Kiwi 2008 Kākāpō 2007 Grey warbler 2006 Fantail 2005 Tūī How voting works: https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/voting/ "Voting for this year's competition opens at 9am on Monday 30 October and closes 5pm on Sunday 12 November. The winner will be announced on Monday 13 November."

Promising news for the kōtuku

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/501935/nesting-season-looks-promising-for-critically-endangered-kotuku

Nesting season looks promising for critically endangered kōtuku

There are 56 nesting pairs of critically endangered kōtuku or white heron at Aotearoa's only breeding spot for the birds on the West Coast this year.

Some quite outstanding turnarounds and innovations in NZ conservation over many years (albeit with lots of work still to go).

Have done a rough coverage of my brief look at the options. Fairy terns and Taiko stood out to me as highest likelihood. Climate and storm threat seems significant for them alongside food sources, predation and human encroachment. Australasian bittern was another that stood out but admittedly the first time I've heard of it.

I think there's likely to be some larger shifts from the less endangered species so should they crop up I'll try to suggest. A species largely based in Dunedin rings a bell... Affected by disease wiping out large proportions of the population.

The technology and expenditure on individual species I hope will arrest some of these critically endangered species.

For example new Zealand monitors individual kākāpō. That's the level of support being provided. Perhaps not scalable though as more species are threatened.

I'm taking my typically optimistic view here. Haha

The impact of climate change here could be a huge systematic error in my current spread too.

Haven't seen reference of a Northern rock wren before. Assume this is the same as the rock wren that is found in the south island alpine environment?

Such a tiny bird... Only slightly bigger than the rifleman!

@JulianLees Seems DOC have a different page for the southern one, and it's listed separately.

@NcyRocks wow interesting...

Definitely listed there so I wonder where it lives!

Kōtuku are also found outside of NZ:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_great_egret

Are we defining extinction as no longer existing in the country, or everywhere on earth?

@tfae Great question! Didn't realise that. I copied this list from the ones listed by DOC as 'nationally critical', but I think everywhere-on-Earth makes more sense for this market.

@NcyRocks In that case, given the "wide distribution", I'd put the extinction risk quite low 😄