NATURE—AND MAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 3 October 1936, Page 12

NATURE— AND MAN

ROMANCE OF A PLUM-TREE ' FEARLESS BLACKBIRDS (Edited by Leo Fanning) At the moment I am one of the proudest burgesses of Wellington, because I have a nest of blackbirds in a cherry-plum tree near the front door of my house. I feel sure that nobody else in the city has such a treasure in such a position. This feeling of uniqueness is very pleasant.

First of all let me tell you about that, tree which sprang from a stone that somebody threw casually from the from door. The tree came up at an awkward place, close to a path. Many, a time I hacked away the growth, but the tree had such marvellous hardihood in asserting a right to live that I finally allowed it to have its way. It has flowered and fruited for several seasons and spreads a noble canopy of green. The other day, when I was peering up at branches, counting the plums, a hen blackbird suddenly appeared in a matipo, whose greenery mingles with the foliage of the plum-tree. Mrs Blackbird was scolding me. She was telling me that I was near the home for which she had used “green feathers” snatched from my fern tree. I had thought that the nest was in a thicket by a boundary fence, but I was wrong. “Clear out, please! Get out!” called Mrs Blackbird. When she found that I did not seem to understand her request, she decided to trust me. She darted into the plum-tree, and promptly sat on a nest. Well, it was really conspicuous, almost as easily visible as a common sparrow’s nest. It was snugly built into the junction of ■ several small branches; indeed it can be seen from the inside of my house. The tail of the sitting bird, well clear of the nest, is visible yards away from the tree. Does anybody know of any other pair of blackbirds that seem.to be so heedless of concealment?

Those, birds of mine did not bother about the persons who went up and down the path, nor the noise of the milkman, nor the hurling of newspapers. 1 I have mentioned that when I was a boy in Christchurch blackbirds were much persecuted by boys with shanghais and shotguns. They were much afraid of humanity; they would scurry away in fright if a person, young or old, came within 50 yards of them. The incident in my garden is a pleasant reminder that kindness wins the confidence of birds and. encourages them to give gladness to their well-wishers.

EASY CULT OF BEAUTY How easy it is for people to raise beauty for themselves and others! On the sand-dunes of Paekakariki, a seaside resort of Wellington folk, a public-spirited man, at little cost of time and money, has made a pageant this. spring. He sowed blue lupin on about an eighth of an acre of un-

dulating sand. What a noble spectacle hefereated! Billows of blue merging * intq-jvaves of gold of the wild lupin. Clols® by another benefactor has a big spread of “kaka-beak,” whose ruby pendants help the lupins in the flourish' of colours. Here is a case where the cult of beauty is also profitable. Those lupins bind the sand, and help to make humus which they enrich with theiri] nitrogenous roots. Thus it was that; Captain Sanderson, president of the Forest and Bird Protection Society, began to establish his quarter-acre of native forest at Paekakariki about 11 years ago. It is an impressive proof that native trees can be raised quickly, even when the factors are far from ideal. He has made a beautiful woodland on wind-swept dunes.

CHARM OF TREES

Plenty of New Zealanders—especially those who have an intimate knowledge of their own country’s beautiful trees— will like these lines of Robert Louis Stevenson in “Travels with? a Donkey”:—

“A -hew .road leads from Pontledge de Montvert to Florae by the valley of thp Tarn; a smooth sandy ledge; it runs about half-way between the summit of, the cliffs and the river in the'bottom of the valley;, and I went in and out, as I followed it, from bays of shadow into promontories of afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of Killiecrankie; a deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, and craggy summits standing in the sunshine' high above. A thin fringe of ash-trees ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a ruin; but on the lower slopes and far up every glen the SpShish chestnut-trees stood each four-square to heaven under its tented "foliage. Some were planted each on;its own terrace, no larger than a bed;-’ some, trusting in their roots, found strength to grow and prosper and. be straight and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley; others, where there was a margin to the river, stood marshalled in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even where they grew most thickly they were not to be thought of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart individuals; and the dome of each tree stood fqrth separate and large, and as it were a little hill, from among the domes of its companions. They gave forth, a faint sweet perfume which pervaded the air of the afternoon; autumn had put tints of gold and tarnish in the green; and the sun so shone through and kindled the broad foliage, that each chestnut was relieved against another, not in shadow, but in light. A humble sketcher here laid down his pencil in despair.

“I-wish I could convey a notion of ' tfie growth of these noble trees; of how they strike out boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of drooping foliage like the willow; of how they stand on upright fluted columns like the pillars of a church; or like the olive, from the most shattered bole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they partake of the nature of many different trees; and- even their prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have a certain palm-like air that impresses the imagination. But their individuality although compounded of so many elements, is but the lichei and the more original. And to look down upon a level filled with these knolls of foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts cluster like Uerded elephents’ upon the spur of a

mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that are in Nature.”

A CLOSE CORPORATION OF WHITE-EYES

A citizens of Wellington has two good habits. He rises at 7 o’clock, gets a cup of tea for his wife, and then goes out to feed birds with crumbs and other fragments of food. During the past winter he formed a firm friendship with three white-eyes. Gradually he induced them to perch on his hands, for which he rewarded them with sips of honey. Those three birds would not allow others to enjoy the same privilege. They had a feeling that the union should be limited to three members, whom their feeder dubbed “the three musketers.” They fiercely resented the instrusion of any other white-eyes.