WILDFOWL EXPERT

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28161, 27 December 1956, Page 3

WILDFOWL EXPERT

Mr Peter Scott’s N.Z. Visit

Famous in his own right as one of the world’s foremost painters, collectors, and writers about wildfowl, Mr Peter Scott, son of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer, will arrive in Christchurch today by air from Melbourne, where fie judged sailing events at the Olympic Games. He will make an 18-day tour of New Zealand, and will spend most of his time studying wildfowl.

After he arrives in Christchurch, Mr Scott will make rapid tours of the South Island and the North Island. He is accompanied by his wife and a cameraman from the British Broadcasting Corporation’s television service. Mr Scott conducts a regular popular natural history programme called “Look,” on television.

While he is in Christchurch Mr Scott intends to see his father’s statue, the work of his mother, who achieved note as a sculptor, Kathleen Bruce, before her marriage. He also hopes to visit Notornis Valley in Fiordland to study the takahe. In the North Island, Mr Scott will sfie the gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers, and if lucky enough, the rare blue duck of the East Coast district. He will also be shown the wildfowl of the Rotorua and Waikato areas, and will visit the Kapiti Island bird sanctuary while a residential camp for bird study is in progress. In Northland, the party will go to Waipu to see the rare brown duck or brown teal.

Mr Scott has not previously visited New Zealand, but he already knows something of Canterbury yachtsmen. He attended the Olympic Games as president of the International Yachting Union —he represented Britain at the 1936 Games—and was chairman of the international jury which disqualified Australia in the Sharpie yachting event. As a result of this disqualification, the Canterbury yatchsmen, Peter Mander and Jack Cropp, won the gold medal for the event.