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Brown Creeper, Pipipi.

brown creeper
mohua novaeseelandiae

Sorry that should have read "Whitehead"

Andrew Thomas

Not typical habitat (what is?), but the relatively plain plumage, scruffy tail and chestnut colouring on the rump and tail all point to Brown Creeper. And is that a hint of a whitish eyestripe?

The habitat's funny, and that tail looks very pale (maybe it's about to moult?), but I'm going to go with brown creeper.

Wow! This is something of a challenge, so we'll have to approach it like Hercule Poirot. Although its head is in the sand, it isn't an ostrich because its legs are too short and its tail doesn't look like my feather duster. So that is one species eliminated. It could be a myna, searching for gold in the Coromandel or on Great Barrier Island, or even on Steward Island, but it isn't brown(lee) enough. Two down, lots to go...[Some time later, with lots more eliminations - albatrosses (not hanging around anyone's neck), ducks (Sav doesn't regard them as birds), shearwaters and petrels (mmm...I'm not too hot there, unless it is out-of-season FFSs)...etc.] Judging from the tail and rump colour, and what appears to be the ragged tips to the tail, together with the generally unmarked greyish body and wing feathers (excepting the pale edge to the primaries), I'm plumping for an immature Whitehead (hence no white head), doing something no self-respecting Ohakune whitehead would dream of doing, fossicking about on the ground; that's the problem with the young...still haven't learned to do the right thing. I'm probably wrong, but I can't let Jan have all the glory

Brown Creeper