White lightning not welcome

Press, 2 September 1977, Page 1

White lightning not welcome

Bird, bird go away — and don’t come again some other day. Caretakers at Mona Vale can be forgiven for hoping that the elusive white heron gets fed up soon with wintering in the city, and disappears — back to Okarito. Three white herons have been plaguing the Mona Vale fish pond, and have developed a distinct taste for goldfish — 150 of them so far this winter, at a rough estimate. Two of the birds

left for parts unknown, but one is staying on at his new feeding grounds. The park’s caretaker (Mr H. H. Ayres) and his crew even had to put boards over a comer of the pond, near an outlet pipe, so that the fish could find safe harbour from the heron. A “Keep Off” sign is painted on the boards, applying as much to white heron as it does to Mona Vale visitors. Mr Ayres said the first board laid on the corner did not work very well — the bird found out what

was what, and did a little fishing under the protective covering where the fish huddled. Those fish that are too big for the heron are tossed aside, and left floating on the pond. “He is a protected bird,” Mr Ayers said. “There is not much we can do but shoo him away, but then he only flies up into the cedar tree and squawks at us until we go away. Then he stands out in the pond and mesmerises the fish. He is as quick as greased lightning.”

Mr Ayers suspects that the heron might be spending its nights in the Kahikatea trees of Deans Bush, where it can get the Westland feeling of home.

Other birds in the neighbourhood are not exactly enamoured of the heron, and magpies have given him a round of the kitchen now and again. Even seagulls get into the act. One gull got ideas from the heron, and tried some fishing of his own. He got one, but dropped it when chased away by the workmen.