Listen to the Shining Cuckoo
Recording by David Boyle · xeno-canto XC855256
Shining Cuckoo
Māori name: Pīpīwharauroa
Scientific name: Chrysococcyx lucidus
Native Migrant
The shining cuckoo is a migratory visitor to Pāuanui, arriving from the Solomon Islands each spring. Its brilliant iridescent green plumage and distinctive descending whistle are unmistakable. In Māori tradition, the arrival of the pīpīwharauroa heralds the beginning of spring and the planting season. It is a brood parasite, laying its eggs in the nests of grey warblers.
Did you know?
Shining cuckoo chicks instinctively push any other eggs or chicks out of the nest — and the much smaller grey warbler parents raise the cuckoo chick as their own, even as it grows far larger than them.
Threats
Stoats and rats destroy the grey warbler nests the cuckoo depends on for breeding. Loss of host species directly impacts cuckoo numbers.