Anthus novaeseelandiae
Silhouette: Susan Murphy (original photograph), T. Michael Keesey (vectorization) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The New Zealand pipit (Anthus novaeseelandiae) is a fairly small passerine bird of open country in New Zealand and outlying islands. It belongs to the pipit genus Anthus in the family Motacillidae. It was formerly lumped together with the Richard's, African, Mountain and Paddyfield pipits in a single species: Richard's pipit, Anthus novaeseelandiae. Many authors split the Australasian pipit further into two species: Australian pipit (Anthus australis) in Australia and New Guinea and New Zealand pipit (Anthus novaeseelandiae), also called pīhoihoi, in New Zealand.
The New Zealand pipit was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the larks in the genus Alauda and coined the binomial name Alauda novaeseelandiae. Gmelin based his account on the "New Zealand lark" that had been described and illustrated in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume work A General Synopsis of Birds. The naturalist Joseph Banks had provided Latham with a painting of the bird by Georg Forster who had accompanied James Cook on his second voyage to... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arthur's Pass National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 2 | Aoraki Mount Cook National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 3 | Fiordland National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 4 | Egmont National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 5 | Rakiura National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 6 | Abel Tasman National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auckland | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a New Zealand Pipit sighting in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park on a given day, based on 113 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 23rd most-seen of the 36 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
August
In that month about 50% of wildlife watchers report a New Zealand Pipit in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park on a given day, against about 10% in February, May–July, September and November–December, the lowest months.
Between noon and 3 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most New Zealand Pipit sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Among the best
Of the 6 parks where we can rate New Zealand Pipit sightings, Aoraki Mount Cook National Park ranks 2nd at about 20%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Arthur's Pass National Park (New Zealand, about 20%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the New Zealand Pipit that you can see in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Chaffinch (about 90%), Eurasian Blackbird (about 90%) and Grey Warbler (about 80%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the New Zealand Pipit is recorded against all the birds logged in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park (113 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
