NATIVE BIRD LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20618, 17 July 1930, Page 13

NATIVE BIRD LIFE.

HABITS OF MANY: SPECIES;

STRANGE WAYS OF NATURE.

LECTURE BY MR. EDGAR STEAD/

Lovers of native New Zealand birds spent a most enjoyable two hours at the University College Hall last evening, while Mr. Edgar F. Stead, of Christchurch, discoursed to a large gathering on this subject, which he has made peculiarly his own. His account of the birds, to the study of whose habits he has devoted a large part of his life, was illustrated throughout by photographs he had taken. Many of these were unique, and cost hours if not days of patient skill to secure, and their scientific accuracy made them a: true education. - Mr. Stead devoted all the earlier part of his lecture to a description of sea bird life, but before he closed he found time to tell something also of our grey and blue ducks, sparrow hawks, common hawks, morepork, tuis, bellbirds, robins, kingfisher, native pigeon and friendly litfle garden favourites liko fantails, wax eyes and yellow breasted tits. Various methods of stopping and starting adopted by gulls on the surface of the water were clearly illustrated in two group photographs taken at close range' Photographs taken in the Rakaia riverbed showed great colonies of black billed gulls, which sometimes number as many as a thousand in one colony. Grouping For Protection. The grouping together of gulls serves in great measure as protection against hawks and big black billed gulls; and in some strange way they manage to arrange that great numbers of them lay their first egg on the same day. This enables the colony to move off together. White fronted terns use stones for their nests and lay two eggs closely resembling the stones among which they are laid. They have an enormous variation of colouring in the early stages, and if disturbed it is extraordinary the degree to which they can harmonise themselves with their surroundings. The parents bring fish in their bills to their- young, and can carry but one at a time. Often they have to cany the food 12 or 15 miles to the nest. In one colony Mr. Stead had estimated that there were between 35,000 and 40,000 birds. In flight they were extremely graceful, and the camera showed many typical movements and attitudes that the human eye could not catch. The little handed dotterel was another bird common in Canterbury. The young dotterels so completely harmonised with their . riverbed surroundings that it was almost impossible to find ♦hem. Stilts and Penguins.

Another of the Canterbury river birds is the stilt, which wanders about up U> the knees in water looking for food. While anyone is near its nest it maintains a persistent monotonous "yapping" like a toy terrier. In its nesting it also exhibits considerable intelligence in selecting a part above flood level.

Photographs followed of the little blue penguin, one of the three species that nest on the mainland of New Zealand. It builds its nest in holes in the rock and is a very vigorous defender of its : property. Penguins fly through the water with their wings exactly as an ordinary bird flies through the air. The yellow-crested penguin, which also nests in New Zealand, is marked by smallness of the pupil of its eye. One of these, which rejoiced in the name of "Pompey," lived for a dozen years in Akaroa with a fisherman who had tanu?d it. Pompey was as well known a character in Akaroa as Pelorous Jack was f in the French Pass, and he always ma'dff war on dogs. Mr. Stead said the albatrosses gave the finest example of gliding flight in th» world, and hence came their ability to' cover enormous distances with little effort. The biggest of these birds he had seen measured a little over 10 feet in wing spread. The Knowing Albatross. They followed the fishing boats off Stewart Island in great numbers, and the fishermen agreed that albatrosses had learned to know exactly wfiicn fish were edible to man and which would be rejected and thrown overboard to them. The smaller albatrosses were good divers aiivl with wings outspread went down deep after fish Picture? were shown of their typical peaty nests on the Snares. They came ashore in pairs for several days, and then the male bird went out to sea again. ' Many of the slides shown were securfed during a trip tliat the lecturer made round Stewart Island toward the end of last year. One of the little outlying islands abounded . in the burrows ot petrels, one species of which, ..the whitu* faced storm petrel, has a habit of cansfully ornamenting the entrance to iia nest with grass. The Mutton Birds. The mutton birds were the young of the sombre shearwater petrel, and when they were about three months old the Maoris went down to collect them. They were extraordinarily fat at that 6tage, weighing about 3jlb., whereas the adult bird weighed only l£lb. to l|lb. When the parent birds had fattened up the young to that stage they went away and left them to fine down until they were thin enough to fly. From a small island of less than 100 acres a "crop" of 11,500 mutton birds had been taken during the past season. Waiting to prey on the mutton birds or other small birds was the skua gull.: These gulls for part of the year at any rate fed almost entirely on petrels, and the young skuas were almost, as ferocious as their parents. Two of the lecturer's friends were struck about the head by, these gulls. The next family of sea birds to be depicted was that, of the shag, which was illustrated in all stages of development. The thanks of the gathering to Mr. Stead were expressed at the close by Mr. H. E. Vaile, president of the Auckland Institute, under whose auspices tlie lecturo was given.