A PLACE FOR BIRD LOVERS

Evening Star, Issue 22775, 9 October 1937, Page 8

A PLACE FOR BIRD LOVERS

The pledge.—“ I promise to caro for all wild birds, especially New Zealand native birds, to feed them in winter, and to protect them at all times. ; 1 promise also to protect our native trebs and bush, and at no time to assist in their damage and destruction, since they are the natural homo of our native birds.” Name Full postal address If you wish to join the Bird Club it is necessary to send Is in stamps or a postal note, and a bird book and badge will be sent to you. Address your letter to Big Brother Bill, care of ‘ Evening Star,’ Stuart street, Dunedin, C.l. Be sure to mark your envelope “ Bird Club.” MOTHER LOVE IN A YEW TREE From a little bird sanctuary at Uxbridge a grown-up has written to one of the papers telling how a thrush, having had her nest destroyed by a storm, is helping to feed the offspring of a robin which has six young in her nest, built in the same old yew. That a thrush should feed young robins is more charming that surprising. Human beings are always stirred to love and pity by babies; birds and animals are moved to the same emotion by the young of their own kind. The operation of this instinct may be traced at nursery time in almost any big quiet garden. Most young birds leave the nest before they are capable of feeding themselves, and we all know what a plaintive piping they raise when another bird alights near them. The other day wo saw an adult starling feed a young thrush; have seen both blackbirds

and thrushes feed young from nests not their own; we have seen lovebirds,, twice the size of budgerigars, feed baby; budgerigars, whose mother had died. Long experience of .this trait in birds suggests that the cry of a fledgling stimulates the instinctive sympathy and affection of other birds at nesting time. We should expect that the young cuckoo, which has thrown out of its stolen nest either the eggs or the other nestlings, would be hated by other birds, but it is not. When it', leaves the nest, still needing its daily food, its whimpering call attrkcts not only;

its foster-parents, but any other birds landing in its vicinity, and half ai dozen birds may combine their labours to feed it and bring it up. Mother animals are actuated by the same gentle passion when the young ol creatures not their own are in nee d of comfort and sustenance. Thus we find orphan lambs mothered by cows;, rats and squirrels by cats: wolves; lions* and tigers by dogs, and so on in. widen* ing circles to embrace a vast concourse

of creatures imbued during the nursery season with this wonderful impulse of feeding the hungry and helping the helpless. It is as if Nature had a residue el kindness left as surplus, and implanted it in her wild things for special use at one season, the season when the young and untended may be kept alive and aided to strength by a generosity which is not usually exercised at any other; ' period of the year.