This tiny bird is grey-brown above and pale grey on the face, throat and breast and has an off white belly and undertail.  The darker tail is tipped white and the eye is red.  The song is a distinctive long musical wavering trill.

The diet is mainly invertebrates.  Spiders, caterpillars, flies, beetles and bugs are often taken by the bird hovering to pick them from plants.  A few small fruits are also eaten.

Breeding is between August and January and pairs stay together year after year.  The female takes up to 27 days to build the distinctive domed hanging nest with a small side entrance hole.  It is made of rootlets, moss, lichen, leaves, bark, tree-fern scales and fibres, twigs, cobwebs, spider egg-cases, wool, hair and feathers and is lined with a thick layer of feathers, downy seeds and tree-fern scales.  The clutch of 2 – 5 white eggs with reddish-brown speckling is incubated by the female for 17 – 21 days.  Both parents feed the chicks for the 15 – 19 day fledging period and for up to 35 days after the chicks leave the nest.  The male does most of the later care of the first brood as the female prepares to lay the second clutch.

The Grey Warbler is the usual host to the Shining Cuckoo on the New Zealand mainland.  They have been seen feeding Shining Cuckoo chicks on Tiri. 

This bird is one of the few native passerines to have adapted to human modification of the landscape and is common in many forest, scrub, rural and city habitats.

Photography by: Simon Fordham © (left) and Max McRae © (right)

References: Heather, B.D.; Robertson, H.A. 2000 The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand. Auckland, Viking.
Moon, G The Reed Field Guide to New Zealand Birds.