A rare riroriro
This morning I had a very exciting encounter on my lockdown walk, something I’d never seen before, a partially leucistic riroriro/Grey Warbler!
I took my camera with me on a walk to Otari-Wilton’s Bush to see if I could spot some birds, as usual the reserve was full with the sounds of tūī, pīwakawaka (Fantails), kākāriki (Parakeets) and riroriro (Grey Warblers). After walking the circular walk I was about to head home when I spotted this patchy riroriro. The conditions weren’t ideal for photos, I was looking directly into the sun, but I snapped some anyway so I could talk about this exciting sighting.
Riroriro are our second smallest bird, they are endemic to New Zealand and are widespread throughout the country. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of these tiny Warblers in my time photographing birds, but I’ve never seen any with markings like this. The bird appears to have some partial leucism, a genetic condition that causes some feathers to be absent of pigment, leaving them white. Interestingly this bird had much darker than usual colouring on top, white patches, and even some white claws.
Earlier in the lockdown, my friend and fellow Wellington bird enthusiast Holly Neill spotted a fully leucitic tauhou/Silvereye, I had been optimistically keeping an eye out to see her bird, or any other unusual bird for that matter. So it was very exciting to spot this little one. I hope to go back with better lighting conditions to get some nicer photos but here are the photos I took, you can see the dark colouring of this special little riroriro.
