Philesturnus carunculatus
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The South Island saddleback or tīeke (Philesturnus carunculatus) is a forest-dwelling passerine bird in the New Zealand wattlebird family which is endemic to the South Island of New Zealand. Both the North Island saddleback and this species were formerly considered conspecific. The Department of Conservation currently has the South Island saddleback listed as At Risk--Declining.
The South Island saddleback was first 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 starlings in the genus Sturnus and coined the binomial name Sturnus carunculatus. The specific epithet carunculatus is Latin for a small piece of flesh, hence wattles. Gmelin based his description on the "wattled stare" that had been described and illustrated in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham has examined a specimen in the collection of the Leverian Museum in London that had come from New Zealand. The word "stare" is an archaic word for a starling. The South Island saddleback is now placed with the North Island saddleback in the... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rakiura National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand | |
| 2 | Fiordland National Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Orana Wildlife Park | 🇳🇿 New Zealand |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a South Island Saddleback sighting in Fiordland National Park on a given day, based on 37 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 78th most-seen of the 94 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a South Island Saddleback in Fiordland National Park on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most South Island Saddleback sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 2
Of the 2 parks where we can rate South Island Saddleback sightings, Fiordland National Park ranks 2nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Rakiura National Park (New Zealand, about 40%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the South Island Saddleback 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 South Island Saddleback is recorded against all the birds logged in Fiordland National Park (37 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.
