Pīwakawaka

The New Zealand fantail, or pīwakawaka, is a tiny, friendly bird with a very special party trick: it can spread its long tail out into a wide fan. With its greyish head, white eyebrows, warm cinnamon tummy, and that fluttering black-and- white tail, it is one of the country’s best-loved and most familiar little birds.

Fantails are wonderfully bold for something so small. They often flit within a metre or two of people walking in the forest or the garden. There is a clever reason for this friendliness. As you walk or dig, you stir up tiny insects from the leaves, and the fantail zips in to catch them in mid-air.

While it is awake, a fantail is almost never still. It darts from twig to twig, turning and twisting and fanning its tail as it snaps up flying insects. Because it eats insects it is called an insectivore, and all that endless movement helps it chase down its fast, buzzing meals.

Not every fantail looks the same. There are two colour forms, called morphs. Most are the common pied form, but there is also a rarer dark morph, which makes up about 5 in every 100 fantails in the South Island. Spotting one of these smoky dark birds is a lovely surprise.

Fantails live in forests, shrublands, parks, and leafy gardens from the far north right down to Stewart Island, and they are listed as Least Concern. They can find homes in many kinds of trees, which helps them stay common. Planting native trees and keeping gardens safe for wildlife gives these cheerful tail-fanners plenty of places to flit and feed.