Native Bird Pollinators

Tui covered in flax pollen

About 8% of the New Zealand flora is bird pollinated.

The native bird-pollinated New Zealand plants are pretty much everything you can think of that’s got a decent flower, so the stuff like New Zealand flax, pōhutukawa, rata, the tree fuchsia, the native mistletoes, kaka beak, kōwhai – pretty much any native plant you can think of that has a flower that people plant in their gardens that’s big and obvious cause birds go to it.

There’s two ways to figure out the characteristics of bird-pollinated flowers. They’re large, they’re usually red or yellow, they’ll have lots of nectar in them and often the branches are robust enough to take a bird because they’re much heavier than insects.

Birds that feed a lot on nectar have a beak and a tongue that’s long enough to get inside the flowers. They also have a brush tongue, so the end of the tongue has all these tiny little sort of papillae on it like a paintbrush and so basically that sucks up the nectar. They stick the tongue in and the nectar’s sucked up into this sort of brush-like structure very quickly.

Bird numbers have been steadily declining in New Zealand since 1870 due to the introduction of mammals and at least 59 bird species have become extinct. Their importance as seed dispersers has long been recognised but their value as pollinators has only been understood within the last ten years. With 74% of our native birds at risk of extinction, it is imperative that we encourage them to flourish. When it comes to bird pollination very little is done by exotics with 89% of flower visits coming from natives. Plants that use birds as pollinators usually have large, colourful and often red and yellow flowers. Examples of this are: kowhai, harakeke / flax, fuchsia, kaka beak and rewarewa. Including these in your garden will go a long way to attracting bird pollinators, primarily korimako, tui and tauhou.

Korimako are olive green jewel-like birds with a distinctive melodious call that earned it the pakeha name of bellbird. Tauhou are keen fig thieves in our garden travelling in mobs and searching for food…

We are so excited about the finished burnt native bird pollinator design Ngaire has made for the sculpture trail celebrating some of my favourite birds.

To attract native birds, consider growing species that provide nectar, seeds, and berries all year-round so birds always have food available to them. You can put a nectar feeder in your garden while your new plants grow and a water source is always welcome.