7 Rifleman Facts – The Smallest Native Bird!

The endemic rifleman is New Zealand’s smallest native bird. Read 7 facts about this bird that weighs about 1/3 of a house mouse.

The more time I spend wandering in the bush the more that I become familiar with it. I’ve learned to identify the sounds of a kereru flapping overhead, a tui calling, or a tomtit chirping. One of the coolest birds that I’ve only been fortunate enough to see a handful of times is the tiny rifleman. The small size of this bird and bright colour blows me away as I watch it moving around the bush looking for food.

7 Rifleman Facts

This is New Zealand’s smallest native bird, weighing in at 6 grams with males measuring a mere 7 centimetres in length. It has short wings and a very short tail. In fact, when you look at one perched it may appear that it has no tail. Personally, one of the ways that I identify it, to distinguish it from a grey warbler, is to see the apparent lack of tail feathers.

The te reo name of this bird is Titipounamu. Both the English and te reo names allude to the colour of the bird – a greenish tint on its back. Rifleman refers to the colour of jackets that New Zealand infantry rifleman wore in the 1800s. Maori called it Titipounamu in reference to the sacred pounamu stone or green stone.

These birds emit a high pitched call that may in fact be difficult or impossible for some older adults to hear. Most of the time that I’ve seen them I will have heard the single, short calls (I’m getting older and definitely have a harder time hearing that call then my kids do). Then I’ll stop and quietly look around, trying to focus in on the sound. If lucky, my patience will be rewarded as they hop into view nearby.

Rifleman are not very strong flyers. When foraging they make a series of hops as they move up or down a trunk looking for food. Then they’ll make short flights to nearby trees to start over again.

This bird eats insects that it catches in a variety of ways. The main technique is to find insects in the bark or moss on the trunk of trees. It can often be seen moving its way along the trunk of a tree before flying to a new tree and starting again. It also will forage for insects in the canopy or even along the ground.

Rifleman are sexually dimorphic, meaning that the males and females have a different physical appearance. Males are smaller than females and have bright green on their back and head. On the other hand, females are slightly larger and are mainly yellow brown on the back and head. Both sexes have a paler colouring on the underside.

These native birds used to be widespread across New Zealand, but the destruction of habitat (cutting down the bush) has greatly reduced their range in the North Island (remember they are not strong flyers and can’t easily migrate elsewhere). They can now be found in mature patches of higher altitude forest in the North and South Islands. On the North Island there are populations in the central plateau around Tongariro and Pureora Forest Park, at Mt. Taranaki, and Little Barrier Island. On the South Island they can be seen throughout the west, but also at Banks Peninsula and the seaward Kaikoura Range. They can also be found on some predator free islands, such as Ulva Island.