TO-DAY’S NATURE NOTE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 258, 28 July 1934, Page 6

TO-DAY’S NATURE NOTE

, • Native Pigeons Wood pigeons are not seen everywhere in ntimlbers, but during the last year I have been on two separate farms which they frequent. One, in North Auckland, has 3000 acres of bush adjoining it and pigeons abound. In the Marlborough. Sounds, this afternoon and for days past I have seen four pairs. There are only a few acres of standing bush, some 200 yards from the house, and small shelter strips dotted over the farm. Round the house are a few bush trees, but mainly poplars, willows, blue gums and tree lucerne. The pigeons desert the .bush for these newer friends. They work great havoc with them, destroying the birds and greedily devouring botih leaves and flowers of the lucerne. Early as it is they are mating. High and wide they Chase one another, filling the air with the soughing music of their flight, but mostly they moou in the trees, tame as cats. Their wooing is the most restless proceeding that has besieged my ears. Barkis is willin’ but Peggotty is coy, and the beat of their wings in and out of the'branches, beautiful at first, becomes an almost unwelcome monotony from dawn till dusk. —Miss E. P. Dawson (Pelorus Sound). “The Dominion** invites readers to send description's in not more than 200 words of thetr observations from Nature. A prise of five shillings is given each week for the best contribution received Address*. Nature Note, 'The Dominion.** *Veliington.