NATURE NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1934, Page 9

NATURE NOTES

BIRDS IX A GARDEN

TUIS AND OTHER SPECIES

(By E. H. D. Stidolph, R.AiO.U.)

".Recently-T. 'saw'an interesting and pretty sight, which would give pleasure to any ."bird-lover,'", writes 3ir. W. H. Denton, of "Fern Hill," 324 The Terrace, '"Wellington. "In a nariovr garden between two houses situated at the back of Williams Park, Day's Bay, was a wild pigeou having its. afternoon meal of kawakawa berries, while a few yards away -were two tuis gathering nectar from an exotic, the Chinese lantern plant. Five 'of us stood close by, but the" birds- took no notice, being too busily at work. The stems of the kawakawa are very pliant, so the heavy pigeon found it difficult to retain its position long • enough to secure a berry. The Chinese, lantern plant is also slender in growth, and . here .the tuis displayed their, acrobatic skill in extracting nectar from "the flowers. Lightly .poised; within, reach of the flowers, they appeared able to turn their'bodies and heads into any position to reach the nectar; to work upside down is nothing to them. On such an occasion one has the opportunity to see the great beauty and gracefulness of these birds. With their surrounding bush; Eastbourne residents can.reckon, if they encourage them,' on being favoured with-regular visits from our native.birds, and the,beautiful and shapely bell-birds, now increasing in numbers, will soon join the others. I notice that the blackbirds and thrushes have found out the kawakawa berries, for I see them making a breakfast of them just now. And what a beautiful garden shrub it is." . Some years ago the -writer witnessed one of the most charming bush and bird scenes it was'possible to imagine, and, curiously enough, it was in a smallhillside area of bush surrounded by pastoral country and many miles from any forest. It seemed as if every tui for miles around had gathered in this scrap of bush, as.there were fully three or four dozen birds present. Some were engaged in acrobatic flights overhead; others were busily gathering food from, the bushes; more were flying from,tree to. tree with noisy flight, ana several ■were singing merrily. Only a few feet away one pompons-looking tui sat on a bough enthralling a listening, mate with sweet warblesJ ' He continued with his soft song,1 and'his mate was absolutely motionless, standing as if petrified. Another tui, further afield clashed upon'these whisper songs with vehement cries of "keow, keow, keow"; another, with a lustrous coat and richer notes, sneezed and coughed and. ended, up with a loud "ow, ow," tossing his head upwards as if saying "How is that?" X mass of creeper climbing-up the shrubs growing beneath the forest giants was alive with little silver-eyes. Probably there were fifty or sixty of them, and they were all engaged in searching.the foliage for food. Suddenly there was a stampede and the silver-eyes scattered in.all directions. A tui had settled in their midst, but the little, birds wer& soon reassured and quickly returned to continue-their quest. It was certainly a most beautiful "sight and one' never to be forgotten. ..;'.. Another correspondent writes as follows regarding the appearance of a shining cuckoo in a town garden atrtha beginning of the month: —• 'One glorious sunny .morning recently a young shining cuckoo appeared in our garden, which is within a stonetlirow of' the town. When I first noticed him "he,was feeding leisurely, extracting;; -■ juicy caterpillars from between the leaves of a small plum .tree. He was still in somewhat youthful plumage, the- bar 3 on his breast being indistinct and his green back lacking the irrideseence of the adult bird. As he dropped : fioin, branch to branch in search of ffpod he seemed blissfully unconscious- of my presence, and I was reminded of one I saw last season in a rangiora. Whether he was over-full or just-tame I knownot, but he allowed me" to approach to within an arm's length before ~.ne showed any sign of uneasiness. Then' he began to turn his head fronv side to side, looking up after the manner' of cuckoos, as if wondering whether he could be bothered to move on. "A slight movement on my.part and he awoke to "• action. A flash of green and he was gone.'.' , The shining cuckoo is one of New Zealand's most beautiful and most useful birds. It eats with great relish the hairy caterpillars whiqh are distasteful to other: species. A veteran New Zealand naturalist, Mr. W. W. Smith, of New: Plymouth, has watched shining cuckoos feeding on the hairy caterpillars of the black and white moth. According to his observations this bird proceeds in characteristic cuckoo fashion to press the larvae between its mandibles, rejecting the empty skins. The shining cuckoo has been known to consume, .in addition to fhe caterpillars . mentioned, those of the kowhai.-moth and also moths, daddy-long-legs, gnats, flies, arid- fruit-slugs. Several cases have been recorded-where this cuckoo has consumed large numbers of fruitslugs, and in this connection the bird performs a valuable service to the orchardist, so thai in spite of its vietimisa* tion of the grey*'warbler the shining cuckoo "is worthy of all the protection that can be extended to it. In any'case it is quite numerous in New Zealand. during ; the summer months-and seems to be holding its own in the struggle for existence. % ■• '