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What a pity that the splitting off of the Aus and NZ Pipits
rendered obsolete the wonderful catalogue of the voices of A
novaeseelandiae (as it then was) in the BWP Handbook vol 5. However, for
your purpose Steve, what I get from that lengthy discussion is -
1) there is no mention of mimicry
2) several races have a 'wide vocabulary' including
whistles, chirps and flutings
3) several calls resemble those of cited unrelated
species
4) there was no input from Australia, despite reports of
disparate sounds for everywhere from Africa, through Mongolia (where 'highly
excited birds' say 'tchrrip' instead of 'tip') to New Zealand (a 'harsh and
piercing 'tzree' given in general excitement throughout the year'). For
your ob to be really valuable, it seems that some assessment of how your
bird rated on the excitement scale would be
useful.
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