Known for its friendly 'cheet cheet' call and energetic flying antics, the aptly named fantail is one of the most common and widely distributed native birds on the New Zealand mainland.
In Māori mythology the fantail was a sign of death in the world. Maui, thinking he could eradicate death by successfully passing through the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-po, tried to enter the goddess's sleeping body through the pathway of birth. The fantail, warned by Maui to be quiet, began laughing and woke Hine-nui-te-po, who was so angry that she promptly killed Maui.
The fantail is one of the few native bird species in New Zealand that has been able to adapt to an environment greatly altered by humans. Originally a bird of open native forests and scrub, it is now also found in exotic plantation forests, in orchards and in gardens. Cats, rats, stoats and mynas are as great an enemy to fantails as they are to other native birds. However, the secret to fantails' relative success is their ability to produce lots of young and their broad diet of small insects.
FEEDING METHODS
Fantails use their broad tails to change direction quickly while hunting for insects. They use three methods to catch insects:
Hawking: Used where vegetation is open. Fantails use a perch to spot swarms of insects and then fly at the prey, snapping several insects at a time.
Flushing: Used in denser vegetation. The fantail flies around to disturb insects, flushing them out before eating them.
Feeding associations: The fantail follows another animal to capture insects disturbed by their movements. Fantails frequently follow silvereyes, whiteheads, parakeets and saddlebacks — as well as people. Trampers will be familiar with this.
BREEDING
The timing of fantail breeding varies with location and weather conditions. The nest is constructed of fine materials (mosses, dried rotten wood fibres, hair, dried grasses, fern scales) tightly woven with cobwebs. Two to five eggs are laid, with both adults taking turns on the nest through the approximately 14-day incubation period. Both male and female brood and feed the young during the approximately 14-day nestling period. One monitored pair reared five broods in a season, totalling 15 fledglings.