NESTING BITTERN PHOTOGRAPHED

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28530, 8 March 1958, Page 8

NESTING BITTERN PHOTOGRAPHED

Chicks Killed By Vandals

“The Press’* Special Service DUNEDIN, March 7.

A Queenstown ornithologist, Dr. M. F. Soper, recently captured on film for the first time a nesting bittern. He took the photographs from a carefully-prepared “hide” in a lagoon near Queenstown. Finding the nest on December 8, Dr. Soper made detailed observations of, the hatching of four chicks and their feeding by the mother bird until the middle of January.

The feeding process was by regurgitation. Dr. Soper, in his daily visits to the nest, saw the chicks growing and becoming stronger. However, on January 1 one of the chicks died. When he returned to the nest again after a fortnight, Dr. Soper found that vandals had killed the other three chicks. The bittern is a member of the heron and egret family, and well known to the Maoris as matuku.

In a report to the Department of Internal Affairs last year, the curator of the Southland Museum (Mrs Olga Sansom) estimated that there were 100 of these birds in Southland. The figure was reached by means of reports from rangers and other observers.

A fresh-water feeder, the bittern includes amongst its. diet frogs, mice, lizards, spiders, and other insects, and sometimes eels. Mrs Sansom said that the preservatioh of this remarkable bird with its booming call and considerable beauty of fern-like feathers was imperative. The bittern was fully protected and the fact that- some vandal had destroyed three chicks made the countryside the poorer, she said.