A brown tūī was reported in Rototuna and has
been frequenting a feeding station that backs on to Tauhara Park. Apparently,
this is not all that uncommon as Neil Fitzpatrick from Landcare Research says
that it’s pretty much identical to tūī that have been regularly seen around
Whatawhata since at least 2006 when he photographed one. There were at least
two individuals with that colour abnormality present at the same time, and they
have been seen for such a long period that I think there have been several
generations. Perhaps this one is related.
There are a few colour abnormalities similar to
this (e.g., leucism, progressive greying,) but I think these tūī are
all examples of the unimaginatively named “brown” mutation (defined as a
qualitative reduction of eumelanin). In many birds this is more often seen in
females, and all the tūī I have seen like this were female.
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