A SEA-BIRDS' ROOKERY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 309, 5 November 1910, Page 2

A SEA-BIRDS' ROOKERY.

Phillip Island, off the south-eastern coast of Australia, is ih*. gathering ground every year of millions of seabirds. They consist of mutton-birds which come, there for nesting purposes. They arrive (says the "Leisure Hoar") in countless thousands, coming in immense flocks, and they reach their rookeries within a few hours of the same date every year. It is this curious example of the power of homing and breeding instinct that has caused so much attention to be paid to the bird. In mid-November, 1902, for example, there was no sign of a nrntton bird on Phillip Island ; but on the evening oi the 2-1 th they were almost darkening the air as they flew in from the" sea. The mutton-bird is a fat, unwieldy, and ungraceful bird, something like a duck in appearance.

Phillip Island faces Bass Strait and the Southern Ocean, over whose broad expanse the mutton-birds roam during the rest of the year. They never come to the rookeries outside the nesting season ; but as soon as that time comes with one common instinct they turn their heads for home, where practically the whole of them arrive during the first two or three days. As illustrating their strong gregariousness, Captain Waller, of the s.s. Westralia, reports that on November 2, while proceeding between New Zealand and Australia, he steamed for 30 miles through solid flights of mutton-birds, extending three of four miles on either side. The birds settled on the sea occasionally to feed, and they then completely covered the water in their neighbourhood, an-d looked, continues the captain, like a reef of black rocks. All these birds were making for the Victorian coast. The nests at the rookeries are made in the soft earth, which is covered with tussocks and pig's face (mesembryanthemum) ; and in this the bird scratches and roots a burrow or hole in which to lay her one egg. The burrows, of course, exist for year after year, though some o! them get elnsed up with sand and debris, and have to be opened up afresh by their owners. As soon as they arrive the birds begin to prepare their nests or take possession of old ones, and the scene is animated and noisy in the extreme. The birds scramble about, screaming and fighting, and it is a long time before even comparative order reigns. Then a curious process takes place. Pach nest is occupied by a pair of birds, who take turn about in sitting on the egg and in going out for food. Very early in the morning, commencing' a couple of hours before sunrise, and continuing till dawn, one bird from each nest sets out in search of food, flying off, quite in the dark, straight out to sea. By daylight half of the birds on the rockeries have vanished, and nothing more is seen of them until dark. Then, shortly after sunset, dark objects are seen fiying in from the ocean. They are the mutton birds returning to their nests, to relieve their mates. There is much squawking and fighting as the returning birds hunt out their own nests, but eventually they all seem to find their mates. The latter, who have been sitting on the egg all day, then, be fore daybreak again, take their trip out to sea, and so. the process goes, on until the egg is hatched and the young one feathered,