In Collaboration with Forest and Bird Youth
words by Jasmine Starr, (she/her)
Stoic. Mysterious. Gloriously eyebrowed. A peculiar, handsome stranger, with great posture and immaculate tail feathers. The definition of style and sophistication. In every photograph, it’s dark eyes probe deep into your soul, planting a thought deep into your mind: “Stop scrolling past the Mātātā when you vote for Bird of the Year!” This suave songbird has many other monikers, from
Fernbird to Mātā, Koroātito to Kōtātā. But, this year, these poised perchers demand a new title: Winner.
The mātātā may be ‘another itty-bitty brown bird’, but they are far from boring. They are coloured dozens of shades of light, dark and reddish brown, with dark speckles that help them blend in with brush and leaf litter. Their magnificently long tail feathers measure a whopping 9 centimetres on average, half the total length of their body. Mātātā weigh only around 35 grams, a little less than a typical slice of bread; in spite of their small size, their energy is anything but lacking.
Despite the calm finesse displayed in photographs, the mātātā’s movements are far from stoic. They can barely sit still, hopping and twitching just like pīwakawaka. These majestic birds are also impressively bad flyers, flapping about madly with their tail pointing straight towards the ground. Mātātā prefer to hop, scuttle and crash through the dense underbrush. They are curious creatures, infamous for poking their heads out of the foliage to inspect researchers.
Mātātā are insectivores, feeding on various types of insects and small invertebrates found beneath the ground cover. They can often be seen picking up leaves with one foot, curiously examining the underside to find tiny critters for their next meal. Mātātā eat anything from caterpillars to small spiders to moths. Some southern subspecies will eat blowflies off the backs of sleeping sea lions!
These songbirds are well-known for their distinct ‘clicking’ call, like two rocks smacking together repeatedly. In fact, it sounds so similar that if you click rocks against each other, nearby mātātā will pop their heads out to investigate. They have a multitude of calls, from a shrill squeak, to a lower kew-whit, to a scrabbling chirp that sounds like said rocks, if the rocks were able to scream every time they were hit together.
Different subspecies of mātātā can be found in predator-free pockets around New Zealand, wherever introduced threats can’t reach them. They can live anywhere with dense, low underbrush and suitable living conditions—wetlands, estuaries, or dry shrubland—that provides excellent protection from natural predators. Mātātā are common in nature reserves such as Waikanae Estuary, as well as islands with effective invasive predator control, such as Aotea (Great Barrier Island), the Open Bay Islands, Titi (Muttonbird Island), and Tine Heke (the Snares Islands). They also live on Rakiura (Stewart Island) and Whenua Hou.
Mātātā used to live all throughout New Zealand, most notably in Wairarapa, Wellington, and Canterbury. They were pushed out and killed as collateral damage. We cleared their habitats and drained their wetlands for our own purposes. Mātātā depend on their home not being drained, polluted, replaced with invasive species, or turned into farmland. If their habitat is destroyed, they don’t have a lot of options–they can barely fly, and no banded bird has travelled more than 800 metres. If this loss of habitat wasn’t enough, these low-nesting birds and their eggs are easy prey for the usual suspects of cats, dogs, rats and mustelids. The Chatham Island subspecies is already extinct, wiped out by the purposeful introduction and release of cats to control rabbit populations on Mangere in the 1890s.
But it’s not too late for the other four subspecies. We can still reverse their decline.
If you live near a current or potential mātātā habitat, you can set up a restoration project of your own—and it can be fully funded from the Department of Conservation, or your local regional council! Reintroducing natives and weeding out invasive, introduced and exotic plants makes a huge difference for the mātātā, giving them the shelter and ecosystem health they need. Mātātā are heavily affected by introduced predators, so participating in trapping efforts, such as Predator Free 2050 or Give a Trap, makes a huge difference.
If you don’t live near a potential mātātā habitat, never fear! You can volunteer in tree plantings, weeding, rubbish cleanups, start a local community conservation group, or join an existing conservation group such as (ahem) Forest & Bird. Protesting, writing, and pressuring the government into making large-scale policy changes is important and should be done, but it can feel daunting and time-consuming. So, good news: There are other ways to help out! You can go outside, crawl around in mud, and make positive changes by yourself! And nobody can stop you!!
If you don’t have the time or ability to get active in the community—or if you don’t want to cover yourself in mud—so much can still be done from a comfy, dirtless chair. You can donate to conservation societies, habitat restoration groups, or your local reserves. If you don’t have the money to donate, you can still do something as simple as raising awareness—so people with more resources learn how to help out too. Even voting for Bird of the Year brings previously underrepresented birds into the limelight, giving them the attention, resources, and habitat restoration so many of our precious creatures desperately need. And I don’t know about you, but I think the mātātā deserves a turn.
The Mātātā has us all fooled, thinking it’s another little brown bird to ignore on the way to something more glamorous. But, like so many creatures, there’s so much more under this first-glance exterior. It’s worth it to take a second look, so the less flashy birds have a chance to secure this same kind of support. And this year, why not cast your vote towards the curious, quivery candidate, the fabulously eyebrowed flapper, the one and only Mātātā?