Skip to main content

North Island Brown Kiwi Sounds: Song & Call

Hear what the North Island Brown Kiwi sounds like: real field recordings including its song and call, each played with its recordist's credit and licence.

North Island Brown Kiwi
Photo: The.Rohit / CC BY 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

This page documents the voice of the North Island Brown Kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) through real field recordings, grouped by the kind of sound each one captures. Every clip is a real recording made in the wild, played with its recordist's credit and licence — listen section by section to tell this bird's different sounds apart.

Pair what you hear with the full North Island Brown Kiwi profile — plumage, size, range and where to see one.

The North Island Brown Kiwi has 4 field recordings on Birbs covering 2 kinds of sound: its song and call.

Song 1 recording

The song is a bird's most elaborate vocalisation, used mainly to claim a territory and attract a mate. In many species it is sung mostly by males and peaks in the breeding season.

Recorded by Meena Haribal Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Call 3 recordings

Calls are the short, simple notes birds use all year round — to stay in contact, coordinate with a flock, or react to what is happening around them.

North Island Brown Kiwi — Call

Recorded by Barry Edmonston Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Recorded by Lindsay Alexander Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

North Island Brown Kiwi — Call

Recorded by David Boyle Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

About these recordings

The audio comes from the xeno-canto community archive, where field recordists share their recordings under Creative Commons licences. Each player shows who recorded the clip and the licence it is shared under, and links through to the recording's own page. Recording quality and background noise vary — these are wild birds recorded in the field, not studio audio.

Like this guide?

Get our best bird guides, ID tips and gear picks in the Daily Birb. One email, zero fluff.

What are you into? (optional)

We’ll only email you what you signed up for. Unsubscribe in one click.

Sources & further reading

  1. xeno-canto (Creative-Commons bird sound archive — every recording credits its recordist) (opens in a new tab)
  2. IOC World Bird List (taxonomy & names) (opens in a new tab)