Bird of the year

Q: What won New Zealand’s “bird of the year” competition in 2021?

A: long-tailed bat

In 2021, New Zealand’s "Bird of the Year" winner was the long-tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus), also known as the pekapeka-tou-roa in Māori. We have been informed that “pekapeka-tou-roa” does not mean “this is a bat not a bird”.

The Bird of the Year competition is hosted by Forest and Bird, a New Zealand environmental organisation, and in 2021 there were a record number of votes, clinching the win for the mammal. The longtailed bat lead the polls for most of the two week campaign, proving that the early bat gets the worm. Voting is conducted through an instant runoff system, where voters rank their top 5 birds.

Forest and Bird were stoked about the result, and were happy to kill two bats with one stone – a huge PR boost for the competition, as well as raising awareness for the longtailed bats.

The competition has been plagued by scandal. In 2020, 1500 fraudulent votes were submitted, and in 2019 there were claims of interference when 335 votes were cast from Russia.

The long tailed bat is considered one of the rarest mammals in the world, many New Zealanders have never seen one. They are just the size of a human thumb, and weigh just 8-12g, which is about the same as a AAA battery. They are also incredibly cute, no wonder they won!

We are going to presume the 2025 Bird of the Year nominees are the cabbage butterfly, the Pacific flying fish, and Air New Zealand.