{"id":218953,"date":"2026-01-06T03:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T03:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/218953\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T03:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T03:36:07","slug":"northlands-talking-tui-remembered-as-otorohanga-bird-pleakly-goes-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/218953\/","title":{"rendered":"Northland\u2019s talking t\u016b\u012b remembered as Otorohanga bird Pleakly goes viral"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cManuhiri [visitors] couldn\u2019t work out where the welcoming words were coming from,\u201d Tipene said.<\/p>\n

\"ItIt wasn’t unusual for M\u0101ori of Karani Hiku Paraone’s era to live around native birds that were almost like pets. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

People who saw Tipene\u2019s post were prompted to share family memories of their own \u2013 one about a kuia in Huntly who trained two magpies to speak te reo; another about a Bay of Islands dad who also kept a talking t\u016b\u012b.<\/p>\n

But the region also had a celebrity among its talking t\u016b\u012b. Woof Woof, a permanently injured t\u016b\u012b that lived at Whang\u0101rei\u2019s Native Bird Recovery Centre, got TV coverage more than once in his 10 years of entertaining visitors.<\/p>\n

Woof Woof died aged 16 during 2011<\/a>, but he still lives on in the memories of many Northlanders who had the joy of meeting him, and there\u2019s still footage of him on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Woof Woof (because he could bark like a dog) was renowned for A real Kiwi accent, and he sounded exactly like his beloved keeper \u2013 centre founder Robert Webb<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Woof Woof had an extensive repertoire of conversation, one fan recalling: \u201cI was lucky to have met Woof Woof. He told me about how he came to be at the aviary saying, \u2018I fell out of the tree, broken my wing, can\u2019t fly\u2019. I thought it was a tape recording but he carried on talking, asking, \u2018where\u2019s the waxeye?\u2019 (another native bird being cared for at the centre).\u201d<\/p>\n

Webb remembers fondly how Woof Woof loved to talk to the public<\/a> and how articulate he was.<\/p>\n

Woof Woof could imitate virtually any phrase to which he took a shine. His festive favourite was \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d. And he wasn\u2019t afraid to interrogate his keepers, by asking them, \u201cWhere have you been?\u201d or letting the cat out of the bag about Friday post-work beer and ciggies.<\/p>\n

Webb said it was sadly common for the centre to receive an influx of t\u016b\u012b chicks in the spring. It had already hand-reared eight this season. All but one that couldn\u2019t be saved had since been returned to the wild and one of those frequently flew back to visit the centre, Webb said.<\/p>\n

He believed the keeping of wild birds as pets was popular in earlier M\u0101ori society, in cages made from bush vines such as supplejack.<\/p>\n

He recalled a mate from his earlier truck driving career would chat about his pet t\u016b\u012b and how it used to say, \u201cPut some kai on, we\u2019ve got visitors today\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of course, the keeping of native birds is now forbidden, and even specialist facilities like the Whang\u0101rei centre, must have the requisite permit, Webb said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to media earlier this year about Pleakly<\/a>, University of Auckland School of Biological Sciences Professor Dianne Brunton said that having a wide repertoire and skill in song is important in t\u016b\u012b society.<\/p>\n

T\u016b\u012b constantly pull sounds from their environment to add to their songs, such as other birds\u2019 calls and human-generated noises like car horns.<\/p>\n

Young birds raised among people are known to pick up human phrases and add them to their song, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to learn everything, basically. And so at that stage, when they are actively learning, a lot like children, babies, they can be taught human sounds. And they can copy human sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Male birds are more likely to pick up the behaviour, but it is also known to happen among females, Brunton said.<\/p>\n

Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years\u2019 experience in journalism, most of which she spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cManuhiri [visitors] couldn\u2019t work out where the welcoming words were coming from,\u201d Tipene said. It wasn’t unusual for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[665,806,35875,132052,21335,71,5275,10053,16569,194,685,111,43,139,1067,24926,69,132050,384,132051,15120,37147,11230,132053,84590,5143,379],"class_list":["post-218953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-around","tag-as","tag-bird","tag-chatterbox","tag-conversation","tag-from","tag-goes","tag-house","tag-iconic","tag-kiwi","tag-last","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-northlands","tag-nz","tag-otorohanga","tag-people","tag-pleakly","tag-remembered","tag-t","tag-talking","tag-torohangas","tag-tu","tag-viral","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}