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Updated graph of pied and black fantails throughout New Zealand

Here's the updated graph of the ratio of how many black fantails people are finding relative to pied birds throughout New Zealand.

Fantail phases graph

The ratio of black to pied is supposed to increase as you travel further south. That's what we're seeing travelling from Wellington (-41º) down to Canterbury and Westland (-43º) but, oddly, the ratio is then swinging back towards more pied birds in Otago and Southland.

With more observations, we can be more certain about whether or not this is true. With more observations, we can also start looking for more detailed patterns, such as whether there are more black phase birds in more forested areas of New Zealand. Lots of observations made over many years will show us how black phase fantails are faring in the face of global warming.

Posted on April 10, 2016 07:20 AM by jon_sullivan jon_sullivan | 0 comments | Leave a comment
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About

New Zealand's fantails come in two colour morphs, the pied phase birds with their brown bodies and black and white fan tails, and the all black birds.

The black birds are more prevalent in the south. It has also been suggested that they are more common in native forest.

In this project we keep track of the ratio of pied and black birds across New Zealand. We'd like to be able ...more ↓

jon_sullivan created this project on July 12, 2014
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