COLONY OF RARE BIRDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15949, 21 June 1915, Page 5

COLONY OF RARE BIRDS.

MANY NATIVE SPECIES.

DISCOVERY NEAR NELSON.

KIWIS FOR LITTLE BARRIER.

[BY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION' ]

Wellington-, Saturday. A hematikahle discovery of bird life lias been made by Mr. R. E. Clouston, mining engineer, of Rockville, in Collingwood, Nelson, district. Mr. Clouston knows a great deal about bird life in New Zealand, and while exploring the Gotland Downs, a block of Crown land, some 26 miles from Rockville, he discovered an entire colony of birds of rare species.

First, there was a rookery of grc-at kiwi (apteryx Haasti) —not a few stray families but thousands of grubbing about in patches of tussock land, which alternated with clumps of virgin bush. There were not only kiwis, but thousands of kakapos, which are so rare that an advertisement appeared in an Auckland paper a few months ago offering £8 for a pair of them. Mr. Clouston arrived here with 25 of the big kiwis.

" I've 'been a bird man all my life," said Mr. Clouston, "and have travelled all over New Zealand, and have never seen anything like it. It is a really wonderful discovery from a scientific point of view, and it will mean the preservation of the various species. The birds I have with me are to be liberated on Little Barrier Island, which, of course, is a sanctuary. Not only are there kiwis and kakapos on the block, but there are Blue Mountain duck by the dozen, saddlebacks (worth £10 each), New Zealand robins, wrens, owls, Cook's petrels (rain bird), keas, kakas, tui, makomakos, warblers, riflemen, creepers (very rare), Maori hens, fantails, tomtits, and pigeons. It was a harvest of rarities. Kiwis are there because the feed is good. We found great worms from 4ft to sft in length. The longest one I measured was 4ft lOin long. As soon as I found them I communicated with Sir Francis Bell, and asked him to have the block declared a sanctuary, and that has been done. It was gazetted some days ago. In the meantime the news of the find had got about, and the place has been visited by men interested in bird life, among them being Mr. James Druramand and Mr. Edgar Stead, of Christchurch, Professor Cotton, Dr. Thompson, of the Dominion Museum, and Mr. Fred. Sparrow. I have made a pet of one o'f the big kakapos. He stands 3ft high, weighs 221b and lias got an enormous beak, but lie allows children to feed him out of their hands. He's a beauty, with pale green plumage, long whiskers, and when he's up a tree you can't tell him from the moss an the trunks— protection again." Mr. Clouston says that the birds are so valuable that the sanctuary will have to be given adequate protection at once, or else there will be wholesale poaching by those prepared to trade on the discovery.