"BIRD LOVER'S DREAM."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18348, 14 March 1923, Page 11

"BIRD LOVER'S DREAM."

ON STEWART ISLAND.

To go to Stewart Island, one of our tourist resorts, is a bird lover's dream, writes Mr. Robert Fulton in the Otago Daily Times. There you can Bee beautiful red-legged, mauve plumaged mackerel gulls, and the large black-backed gull, perfectly tame, within a few feet of you on the jetty; a hundred yards up the track you can hear and see tuis and mockers, perhaps a score. Into the gum trees not a quarter of, a mile from the wharf, chuckling and screaming kakas come every evening. A dozen or more may there be seen twisting, turning, and flapping, peering down, dropping pieces of bark, giving vent every now and again to human-like coughs and chuckles, and then to most melodious lfttie whistles. In one of the creeks, not far away, brown ducks and grey at one time became very tame, but here, also, tourists arrived with guns,' and to the disgust and anger of the working hands, shot many of these tame and confiding creatures. Tomtits are to be seen literally in hundreds. When there in 1916 1 counted them till I was tired. Saddlebacks, crows, kiwis, wekas, cuckoos, canaries, and brown creepers are ail to be found, and it is highly probable that the takahe is there in its forest primeval. Large notices should be placed in the boarding houses, and occasional lectures given to the visitors by those who are interested and competent to instruct. I ami sure any man, whether journalist, university professor, or native-bird lover, would take on the job, and give a talk to people who would care to come together to listen to him.