BIRD SONG.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 205, 31 August 1933, Page 6

BIRD SONG.

A New Zealand radio station begins its morning broadcast with the rather raucous laugh of the Australian kookaburra. If the morning song of our bellbird and tui can be substituted for this not very musical voice New Zealanders should be truly thankful. It is strange that no attempt has yet been made to reproduce for listeners the bush notes of our own country. We have heard gramophone records of the English nightingale; there should be less difficulty in obtaining records of those far sweeter singers, our tui and korimako. There are probably many thousands of New Zealand people who have never heard either bird. The proposal now made to broadcast the song of the bellbird from a small area of bush in Canterbury will have a Dominion-wide appeal, and it should be possible to obtain records that will be a revelation to the world of a new beauty in forest music. The bellbird is more plentiful than the tui in the South Island, and it seems less shy of man there than in the North. At any rate, it is heard nearly all the year round in the gardens and plantations at Akaroa, and in many other places. Aueklanders do not know it so well as residents in the well-planted parts of the South. But it might be found possible to obtain better results in our Northern bird sanctuaries than in the Southern districts. I have heard the korimako all over New Zealand, as far south as Stewart Island, and nowhere is there a greater volume of bird song at morning and evening than on the Little Barrier Island. If any bird-abounding forest is its equal in wild-bird music it is the Urewera Country, where the tui and korimako (or rearea, as it is called there) have a very Vide range of food supply. A midsummer early morning on the bush edge in such a valley as the Waikari-whenua, before the sun is up, is a life-long memory of delight. Long before the first light breaks through the mists the birds are greeting it, in their hundreds, perhaps thousands, all around the camp. One may be pardoned for believing that there can be no sweeter wild notes in any country in the world. Certainly a very great pleasure will be added to wireless harmonies if it is found practicable to bring these dawn-time bush voices to city ears. —J.C.