MAORI NATURE NOTES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 301, 5 December 1929, Page 7

MAORI NATURE NOTES

FOR TRIBUNE READERS (Copyright—J.H.S.) Readers of the “Tribune” who are interested in the flora and bird life of New Zealand, by cutting out these Maori Nature Notes each day as they appear and filing them in a suitable scrap book, may compile a book of reference which will be to them a source of pleasure and instruction in the years to come. KAHU (the garment), the Harrier hawk, was indeed clothed in fine feather raiment, sometimes Kahu Rangi, the Mantle of Heaven. Dark brown head with real hawk eyes and small sharp beak, encircled by a perfect necklace of tawny white plumes. This, with abundant covering of striped feathers and silvery tail, made the big fellow a beauty among his kind Slow flying on wide spread wing, soaring at a low altitude where he might drop upon a bird, a rat, or a rabbit, made him an easy shot for a rifle or a sports gun. A cat was said to be the only small animal which instinct taught him wisely to avoid. The hawk could soar without any wing movement for an hour. It was a searcher for duck eggs, and fed greedily upon dead sheep which were plucked clean at +he noint of entry. Great flocks of small birds attack and worry this slow giant of the air until he drops to cover. If the nesting place was approached, they made no fight; but simply left.