The annual Bird of the Year competition has come around again, where people across the country declare their support for their favourite New Zealand avian.
The Forest & Bird-run competition has already run into some early controversy with the exclusion this year of the two-time champion, kakapo.
That outrage was mild compared with that voiced last year when victory went to a creature that was not a bird, but New Zealand’s only native land mammal, the long-tailed bat.
In Dunedin, locals have already started to throw their feathers into the ring and declare support for a particular bird.
Dunedin’s newly appointed deputy mayor Sophie Barker said the royal albatross was her "No 1 bird".
Dunedin hosted the world’s only main albatross breeding colony and it would be "disloyal as a Dunedinite to look at any other bird," she said.
The Otago Museum was putting its support behind the ruru, also known as the morepork, and had a "Ruru Paul’s Drag Race" campaign in place.
City Sanctuary was planning to support the rifleman, a tiny bird the weight of a coin, while the Wildlife Hospital Dunedin Trust was once again backing the kaki (black stilt).
The Otago Regional Council was still deciding and the Dunedin City Council did not respond to any bird-related questions yesterday.
But few were as passionate as University of Otago student Daniel Cocker, a man with a deep love for the southern New Zealand dotterel.
The campaign manager for the southern dotterel said the medium-sized bird was "like a tomato, with wings".
Only 144 of the birds remained and their numbers continued to decline.
He fell for the bird at the age of 15 when volunteering with the Department of Conservation on some work involving the birds.
Six years later, the zoology student had recently accepted a job offer to work full-time with the dotterel.
It was one of the most endangered birds in New Zealand and needed some attention if it was going to survive, he said.
They used to breed in mountains across the South Island, but the introduction of pests in the early 1900s almost wiped them out.
Now they only bred on Stewart Island and would fly across to the South Island to feed.
The birds were "way more friendly than the northern New Zealand dotterel," he said.
Voting is open until October 30 on the Bird of the Year website.
