I, on behalf of that lovely little bird called the Grey Warbler need your help. The 2007 Bird Of The Year voting is drawing to a close.
Last year the Fantail won with its Can-Can styled flirting with the human public. What a show-off.
Who's in the lead? That big fat green doofus the Woodpigeon. Nice bird and all, but really... there is a pure, and ironically unsung New Zealander that deserves your vote.
What's more worrying is that a great deal of block voting is coming in for the black fronted tern. Not the rare and purely New Zealand Fairy Tern. Just the dumb old black fronted sea chook! This is a disgrace.
I am asking for you to consider voting (it's easy) for The GREY WARBLER! Currently running 5th, which is better than this darling has done for some time.
Vote here.
Why vote GW?
A: It is in fact 2 birds. It is the parent of most Shining Cookoos who bludge off the goodwill of the Warbler Community from egg right through to adolescence just for them to drop off their own delinquent children to other GREY WARBLERS!!
B: Its song is the most often heard purely New Zealand bird song, yet it is so tiny and secretive that it is rarely seen. It's not going to do anything for itself (unlike that hussy the Fantail) to gain favour with Homo sapiens, other than sing. That's class.
C: The sheer effort put into its song. This little bird truly shakes from tailfeather to beak when in song.
D: It is not drab. It exhibits flashes of a Fantail-like tail when hunting its only food... insects, yet doesn't make a grand affair of the matter. Class again.
E: It is New Zealand's LIGHTEST bird along with the Rifleman. Edith Piaf, eat your heart out.
Listen here and if you've been outside New Zealand for any length of time ... weep.
And read about this charming songster here.
Vote for whom you like, but please consider our sub-conscious sound-symbol of New Zealand, the Grey Warbler carefully, before you do.
Yours, Graeme Hill
Secretary
Committee to Elect Grey Warbler 2007
Reviews and endorsements
"Presently, from some manuka thicket, a sombre plumaged little bird will emerge, light on some topmost twig, and pour forth to three-quarters of the globe - for in his ecstasy he nearly sings a circle - this faint sweet trill that heralds fuller spring."
Herbert Guthrie-Smith, 1910.
"The ghost of a kitten's mew - the echo of dwarf violins played in the moon" Allan Bell.
"I owe them everything. Brilliant parents who sacrificed so much for me. I just wish I knew how to pay them back. " S. Cookoo
"Since we've been here they've been nothing but welcoming. Tremendous neighbours." Wally Waxeye, 2007.
"Singing to me comes easy, so when I see the effort that those little buggers put in I feel like I'm Sean Fitzpatrick seeing Terry Wright with a half-gap on the wing and I cheer Go Go Go!!". Brian Bell-Byrd
It is indeed fuller spring. Vote Grey Warbler.