NATIVE BIRDS

Grey River Argus, 4 October 1918, Page 4

NATIVE BIRDS

WEST COAST SPECIMENS,

The writer of "native notes' in the Lyttelton Times. Professor tfrummond, reports receiving a_letter from a Moana resident. Mi. J. l-^tteon in reference to the above. He remarks:- Mr. Pattison jra ting from Lake Brunner, one of the niosi picturesque places in New Zealand, Sates that in the Kopara district and some parts of South Wetland, during the recent snowstorms, many native pigeons went down f.om *c forests and settled in the grass paddocka, where they fed on the leaves of the white clover. Mr Pattison adds that when the miro and white pine and other berries are not in season, pigeons subsist on the small leaves of native trees, wbwe leaves in size and shape do not differ greatly from the leaf or the clover. Mr. Pattison was pleasantly surprised a few days ago when he was told by a reliable observer that the bittern in the Kopara district and the dis tricts sunounding Lake naupiri are not only holding their own, but actually increasing. A short time ago a seller there found a young bittern, and set it; at liberty again. In the Karamea distiict, north of Westpprt, also it is reported the bittern is fairly plentiful. „ . v , Thirty years ago Mr W W Smith, ot New Plymouth, who had seen most of the great forest lands of New Zealand found the vegetation on the shores of Lake Brunner to be in greater profusion and perfection than in any v>ther : district wiih which he was acquainted. 'He believed that in luxuriance it rival led the forests of tropical America. He found the bones of both the Kakapo and the kiwi in the rich groves of tree-ferns, and in the saplings of taller growvh and the branches of powering timber trees many native lvi us revelled and enlivened the forests all day long with rich and varied notes Amongst the brds of the district Mr Smith noted the morcpork, the kaka, vhe kea, the kakapo, the kiwi, the two native cuckoos, the tui, the bell-bird, ) t he wh/te-eye, the yellow-head, the grey-warbler, the rifleman wren, the busli wren, the robin, the kingfisher the torn-tit, the two fantails, the native thrush, the native crow, the native pigeon, the saddleback, the white heron, the blue heron, the bittern, the lu'tle bittern, the blue duck, the little teal, the crested grebe, the dabchick, the weka, the kiwi, the black stilt, the white-headed stilt, the pukeko, the shags, and several species of sea-birds. It would be interesting to know how •many of these species survive in the district, and Mr. Smith's visit U> West land in 1888, by the way, convinced him that the Notornis probably existed to swampy parts of the forests or sedgy lagoons aoane distance inland on southern rivers of the Westland Province.