MIGRATORY BIRDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21315, 17 October 1932, Page 11

MIGRATORY BIRDS

VISITORS FROM FAR LANDS CASE DISPLAYED AT MUSEUM A very interesting show case set up in the bird section of the War Memorial Museum is devoted to the migratory birds that are commonly found in New Zealand. Charts and photographs and explanatory notes add much to the value of the exhibit. Local migratory birds are divided into three classes, the transequatorial migrants that come from the northern hemisphere, summer visitors from Pacific islands, and local or partial migrants whose movements are confined to New Zealand. The first class is represented by the. Pacific godwit, known to the Maoris as kuaka, and the smaller sandpipers, that, come in large numbers with them—(he pectoral sandpiper and the red-necked stint or sandpiper. The sharp piping note of tbe godwit can now be heard at. night as the birds pass over from the north. These birds all made the ad venturous journey from the eastern parts of Siberia or from Alaska, to escape the winter there, when the land is so ice-bound and snow-covered that, they could not remain and live. The red necked sandpiper is no larger than a skylark, and on that account it largely escapes detection. More has still to be learned about the route follo.wed by these birds, but it is known generally that they follow the chains of islands lying in the Western Pacific. The northern lands are their true habitat, for they do not nest or breed in New Zealand. Photographs show the, stern and forbidding nature of their chosen home. Special interest attaches to one of the pectoral sandpipers shown, for it was taken in Alaska by Major Allan Brooks, of British Columbia, who presented it to the museum during a visit here. The visitors who arrive in the spring and return in the autumn to the warm islands of Oceania like the Solomons, are represented by the shining cuckoo (pipiwharauroa) and the long-tailed cuckoo (koekoea). The first record of (lie long-tailed cuckoo this spring was sent in by a school boy observer, who noted one in Grafton Gully on October 6. The longtailed cuckoo is a big birrl of hawk like build, and his appearance is always a signal for a display of hostility by the smaller birds, who fear and dislike him. In the third class of local, or partial migrants is the banded dotterel, which is found distributed all over the rivers and shores of New Zealand during the summer, but is concentrated in the winter time within the limits of the Auckland Province.