"LARGE EYES"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21462, 8 April 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

"LARGE EYES"

By NORAH BENN, Sunny Bank, Arkle's Bay, "Whangaparaoa (age 16).

" Large Eyes " was the name I gave a baby morepork. I was strolling through a patch of native bush one day when I discovered a morepork watching my movements with great interest from a ponga fern. As I faded from view of the fern the bird followed me. This was unusual for a wild bird's custom. Being springtime, however, explained this. I thought the bird must have a nest near by. As I had never found a morepork's nest I really did not know where to look. Someone had told' mo that one might locate it by an unpleasant smell.

As I neared the cliff, for we live very near the sea, I could smell a musty, almost like a pigsty, smell. Near by, right on tho cliff's edge, stood a large pnriri tree. In its side was a large hole. This, I thought, may hold the bird's nest. After climbing up I was sorely disappointed, for I found no nest. I was just about to scramble down when I put my hand around the corner of the hole and I felt something hard on the bare ground of the hole. Drawing it to the surface I discovered it to be a white egg about the size of a, pullet's first egg. Putting the egg back I resolved to go again in three weeks' time.

When a little over three weeks had elapsed I again visited the nest, and when I put my hand around the corner I found a lovely fluffy, downy baby bird, with two extra-large eyes looking at mo out of the smoky fluff. The morepork baby is the prettiest young bird I have ever seen. The colour of the fluff, or down, is a bluish grey, almost a smoky colour. Its eyes are large and round, and they etared at Ine very interestedly. I visited the nest several times and watched " Large Eyes," as I. named it, grow quite big. For a long time " Large Eyes " kept fluffy, but in time lost its down. The parent bird grew accustomed to me and did not mind me seeing its young; in fact, I think it was rather proud of " Large Eyes." Tho last time I went, after a considerable length of time, it had flown.