Famous Collector Will Seek Rare Birds In New Zealand

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28162, 28 December 1956, Page 6

Famous Collector Will Seek Rare Birds In New Zealand

Skin diving at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia had convinced him that the study of fish was at a point reached by ornithology 100 years ago, said Mr Peter Scott in an interview in Christchurch yesterday. He is one of the world’s foremost wildfowl collectors, painters, and writers. The son of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer, Mr Scott, with his wife and Mr Charles Lagus, a British Broadcasting Service television cameraman, will spend 18 days in New Zealand studying wildfowl, and filming it for Mr Scott’s television programme, “Look.” The party arrived in Christchurch yesterday. Olympic Yachting Mr Scott attended the Olympic Games in Melbourne as president of the International Yachting Union. He was chairman of the international jury which disqualified Australia in the Sharpie class, and thus gave victory to New Zealand’s Peter Mander and Jack Cropp. One of the most thrilling moments of the event had been the prize-giving ceremony, when the anthem played had been that of all three men on the dais—New Zealand, Australia, and Great Britain, said Mr Scott. Asked whether New Zealand should in future send yachting representatives to the Games, Mr Scott replied: “Good heavens, yes; has anybody said that you shouldn’t?” In spite of trips on scientific work to the Arctic, Iceland, and the southernmost part of South America, Mr Scott has no intention of visiting the Antarctic, because the particular type of bird in which he is interested is not represented there. On his present tour, he has visited Singapore, Darwin, Perth,, Melbourne, Bass Strait, Flinders; Island. Sydney, New Guinea—! where he sought the salvadore duck in the highlands—and i Cairns. x’rom Auckland he will go to Fiji, Hawaii, California, and New York before returning home. The trip will take about three months and a half. Apart from the serious side of his visit to New Zealand, which will take him in search of the rare blue duck of the East Coast district, and the brown duck or brown teal, and to the Kapiti Island bird sanctuary, Mr Scott hopes to do some gliding, and possibly some more skin diving. owned an Olympic sailplane and next spring intended to buy an Eagle T42—the sailplane which won the two-seater championship In France this year, he said. If he found time, he hoped to visit some of the New Zealand gliding clubs.

Mr Scott first became interested in birds as a hunter, but reflected that, however good a shot one was, he was certain to wound a number of birds. He then turned to collecting and painting birds. The Wildfowl Trust in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, of which he is head, has the greatest collection of ducks and geese in the world. Mr Scott’s paintings sell at prices from £2OO to £3OO each. 18,000 Feet of Film On this trip, Mr Lagus has so far taken about 18,000 ft of 16mm film, and about half as much again will be taken before the trip is complete. Still photographs are taken by Mr Scott. In Hawaii, Mr Scott will seek ne-ne geese, now almost extinct. At the trust are 36 of these birds, bred from three, and the world total is believed to be about 100. In the Second World War, Mr Scott commanded a flotilla of motor gunboats. He was awarded the D.S.C. and bar.