NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19798, 19 November 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

SIBERIA TO NEW ZEALAND.

BX J. DRUMMONU, F.L.S., F.Z-S.

The handsome and elegant Pacific golden plover, seen by a correspondent at Corbyvale, Westport, on October 23, is one of the world's most famous migrants. Like the Pacific godwit.and the knot —waders three—it nests in the Arctic regions, but it comes to New Zealand year in., year out, with unerring regularity; It has a winter costume and a summer costume. The winter costume, put on in August and September, and worn in New Zealand, as described by the Corbyvale correspondent, is shiny brown., spotted or speckled with white and gold, with silver on the under part of the body. The Pacific godwit and "the knot gather together in great flocks. The Pacific golden plover, Mr. E. F. Stead reports, usually is seen in somewhat thinly distributed companies. At different times, he has seen many hundreds of golden plovers, but not more tiian six that had any sign on their breasts of the black breeding plumage. During a terrific gale, when he went from Sydney to Wellington twenty years ago, two golden plovers flew on board, and took up their quarters on cases of oranges on the after boat-deck. A sympathetic chief officer protected them, and they stayed for two days, leaving probably to continue their journey across the "Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand. That was in October. The Corbyvale visitor, doubtless, had completed its journey when it was found.

An idea is given, of the length of that journey when it is stated that the golden plovers' nesting grounds are in NorthEastern Siberia, and along the sea-coast of Alaska. Its yearly migration is along the Asian coast to Japan, the Phillipine Islands, the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, Borneo, Java, Australia, and so on to New Zealand. The Hawaiian Islands and smaller islands in the Pacific are on its itinerary. It is a casual visitor to Arabia, Malta and Spain, and about fifteen records have been made of its presence in England and Scotland.

The very plentiful godwit, the Maoris' kuaka, is the Pacific godwit, or eastern bar-tailed godwit, but Mr. Stead has recorded, also, the Hudsonian godwit, or American black-tailed godwit, which is much less plentiful in New Zealand than its ally. All. four individuals of 1 Hudsonian godwit noted in New Zealand seem to have been taken near Lake Ellesmere, Canterbury. Lord Ranfurly sent the first one to the British Museum; two are in Canterbury Museum, and one is in Mr. Stead's collection. The Pacific godwit's nesting-grounds are in Eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, and Western Alaska. Its route on its great southern migration is through Manchuria, Korea, China, Japan, the Philippines, Borneo and Celebes to islands of the Pacific, including the New Hebrides, Norfolk Island, Fiji and Samoa, and then to Australia a.nd New Zealand ; and it is a casual visitor to the Hawaiian Islands and California.

The Pacific golden plover, the Pacific godwit and the knot are plentiful in suitable places in New Zealand at this season. A smaller migrant, with a modest grey costume, the little stint is represented in New Zealand collections by about seven specimens. In vat numbers it nests on the tundras of Siberia. Its route to New Zealand seems to be via Southern Asia, India, Ceylon and the Malay Archipelago. There is one record in New Zealand of the sanderling, the only specimen of this migrant known in New Zealand, an interesting addition to the native birds section of Canterbury Museum. Mr. Stead, who obtained it at Lake Ellesmere, describes it as, in its full winter plumage, resembling New Zealand's wry-billed plover in size and colours, although its bill is not bent to one side, a character that distinguishes the wry-bill from all other birds in the world. The high north, all round the North Pole, is the sanderling's other home. Hie barren lands of North America, Grinnell Land, Greenland, Alaska, the T&imur Peninsula, Novaya Zemlya, and Iceland are its nesting places. Twenty-two years ago Mr. Stead, at Lake Ellesmere, took the first curlew-sandpipers recorded in New Zealand, fie has seen them often since, usually in company with banded dotterels. Thc'r only known nesting place is in the valley of the Yenisei, the great Siberian River that flows into the Arctic Ocean. The irresistible attraction offered by the sunny south to these residents of the Arctic regions is a secret hidden in. their breasts. Almost the same climate, the same food supplies, and the same conditions are available much nearer their northern homes, yet they fly from end to end of the earth to spend these summer months here.

More shining cuckoos than usual were heard by Mr. C. Stokell in the Ellesrnere district this season. Along the Sehvyn River at different points over a distance of four miles, his brother and he, on October 16, heard six. Several of them were accompanied by a chaffinch. It was impossible to determine whether the chaffinch's object was to take insects disturbed by a cuckoo among the willows, or whether it regarded a cuckoo as an intruder that needed watching. A very tame cuckoo was seen on the Main Drain, Fernside, Ellesrnere district. It flew to within a few feet of the observers, to catch a fly on the wing, and whistled immediately afterwards. Mr. Stokell, early in October, visited Hororata, wtyere ho usually finds cuckoos at the end of October. Although ho listened carefully all day, his luck was out. Ho heard no sound of them.

" I like the long-tailed cuckoo very much," Mr. E. S. Toone writes from Waiotahi, Bay of Plenty, " as it always comes to eat sparrows' eggs from Pinus radiata trees. One season, rt carried young sparrows out of the nests when we were watching it. During the day it is very silent, but at night it may be heard screeching."

New Zealand's great eagle, harpagorriis, left its bones scattered over this country. It received it.s dismissal in fairly recent times geologically, but so long ago that no human being ever saw it spread its wings. Its extinction has made New Zealand devoid of eagles. If it lived, it would be, perhaps, more famous than the golden eagle, to which Mr. Seton Gordon, Aviemore, Inverness-shire, Scotland, has devoted a large monograph. Trap, gun, and poison, have done, in part, for the golden eagle, what Nature did thoroughly for New Zealand's eagle. The golden eagle is extinct in England; it is diminishing fast in Ireland; in some districts of the Highlands of Scotland it is going down hill. The most optimistic view Mr. Seton Gordon can take is that, over the Highlands as a whole, the golden eagle is holding its own, probably. This drift toward extinction is in the United Kingdom only; the golden eagle's vast range covers a large part of Europe, Northern Asia, India, China, Northern Africa and America, as far south as Mexico. With a passion for birds, powers of observation, and facility of expression, Mr. Seton Gordon is one of the most popular ornithologists in the Old Country. He has written up the Highlands from fresh viewpoints, and now he has written the history of the supreme British bird, if magnificent power and grace of flight are the considerations. He has lived in eagle country for most of his days, wandering through glens and secret corries where the golden eagle has its home. He has heard a corrie filled with music—the midnight music of the hills —and he has felt happier, and inspired, when lie has watched the golden eagle in its happiness soar into the sky. He has published a book " Days With the Golden Eagle."