Assessing natural dispersal of New Zealand bellbirds using song type and song playbacks
New Zealand’s managed offshore islands provide sanctuary to endangered and rare fauna but also benefit common native species. These productive islands may facilitate the expansion of mobile species back to the mainland. In northern New Zealand, many mainland protected sites are located on coastal headlands within short distances of these offshore islands. Bellbirds (Anthornis melanura), locally extinct on the mainland of this region for >100 years, are capable of dispersing these distances and are occasionally sighted along the coast.