OUT IN THE OPEN

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 103, 29 October 1945, Page 6

OUT IN THE OPEN

AUSTRALIAN VISITORS (By I. W. T. Munro.)

Two different Australian birds have been reported as visitors to New Zealand this year. The first were several royal spoonbills, first reported from the North Island, but said to have been seen later in the vicinity of Lake EllesruGrG Since the pakeha settlement of New Zealand, royal spoonbills had heen reported as visitors on only four previous occasions, each of which was, 01 course, fatal to the. visitor. One was shot in 1876, near the mouth of the Manawatu River, one on the Buller River in 1892, the third near Grey town Nortji in 1905, and the fourth on the Ruamahunga River, near •' Martinborough, in 1922. . ■ The Maori, however, was familiar with it, ,and called it, appropriately enough, "kotuku ngutupapa," > for its plumage is white, like that of the kotuku, or white heron, and, though it 4s a slightly smaller bird, the most obvious, distinguishing feature is its bill, which, narrow in the middle, widens out to a spoon-shaped end; hence the "ngutupapa"—flat-billed. The Maori name slips much more easily off the tongue than the scientific one, Platalea regia, though this is much less of a mouthful than most examples or technical nomenclature.

The other visitor, reported from. Hokitika, was identified by Dr. W. McKay, Greymouth, as a spur-winged plover, which had previously been recorded in New Zealand only twice. One was captured at Kai-iwi, in 1886, and another was seen on a sandbank in the Hokitika River in 1892.

If such visitors failed to establish themselves in New Zealand-in all the past centuries, it is not likely that, they could do so in this shotgun age, yet it is possible,.for people are beginning to develop the beginnings of a conscience in,such matters. The white heron itself, extremely rare even in Maori times, has managed to survive, conspicuous though it is, while many birds formerly plentiful have been exterminated. Some unsuspected ; influence might lead, to further immigrations, like that which populated New Zealand with white-eyes from Australia less than a hundred years ago.