BIRD BURGLARS

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 79, 28 December 1926, Page 3

BIRD BURGLARS

Records of birds stealing building materials from other birds’ nests are curiously rare (says Captain C. W. R. Knight in the “Daily Mail”). One might almost say that, the only recognised transgressor in this respect is the crafty rook. It is not at all unusual to see a rook awaiting his opportunity to pilfer an attractive-looking stick from a neighbour’s hardly-won pile. He begins unobtrusively when the rightful owner is out of the way—and with what tuggings and neck-twistings lie strives to wrench the coveted object free! Should the owner chance to return while the burgling is in progress, a lively scene ensues. Swinging into the tree with the purposeful action of a hawk, he seizes the miscreant by whatever portion comes handiest, and the two of them come fluttering and squalling to earth. Recently, by a lucky chance, I had a most unusual and uiiexpected opportunity of watching, at a range of barely five feet, one of our tiniest and most charming birds at this shameful trick. A pair of long-tailed (or bottle) tits had built their exquisite nest in the garden. I decided to avail myself of the opportunity of recording their goings on in moving pictures and found myself installed one day with my camera in a roughly-built hide. The bottje-tits came to the nest without the slightest sign of nervousness, and after a time I noticed that every now and then one of them would perch at the entrance and proceed, with amazing energy, to pull out the soft feathers which formed a lining. At first I concluded that they must be trying to enlarge the inside of the nest so as to make more room for the growing family, although I noticed that the feathers were carried off in a curiously purposeful way. So anxious was the little tit to take away as many as he could carry that when he had contrived to extract a feather and had managed to arrange it with its thick end between the mandibles of his tiny beak, he invariably set about procuring a second before going away. With a feather curling up on ’either side of his face, like fine moustaches, he reminded me of a Prussian officer. The fact that he was, in reality, a burglar who was thus procuring nesting materials with a minimum of trouble did not strike me until the thieves and the owners came to the nest at the same time. The thieves waited patiently unil the parents had distributed the rations to the young ones and departed, and then carried on with their disgraceful work.

The behaviour of the parents when they returned and found the burglars at work was in marked contrast to that of the rooks; for instead of sending, the thieves about their business they waited, either through indifference or cowardice, until the latter moved off of their own accord. Tn fact they were no more perturbed by the thieves’ activities than by the whirring of my camera.