Anthus novaeseelandiae
Silhouette: Susan Murphy (original photograph), T. Michael Keesey (vectorization) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~50%
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 |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a New Zealand Pipit sighting in Fiordland National Park on a given day, based on 276 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 50th most-seen of the 94 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June to August
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a New Zealand Pipit in Fiordland National Park on a given day, against under 5% in November, the lowest month.
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.
3rd of 6
Of the 6 parks where we can rate New Zealand Pipit sightings, Fiordland National Park ranks 3rd at about 10%. The best odds are in Arthur's Pass National Park (New Zealand, about 20%) and Aoraki Mount Cook National Park (New Zealand, about 20%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the New Zealand Pipit that you can see in Fiordland National Park (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Chaffinch (about 70%), New Zealand Fantail (about 70%) and New Zealand Bellbird (about 60%), 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 Fiordland National Park (276 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.
