IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18898, 26 June 1923, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

A FARMER'S FRIENDS. By J. Drummond. F.L.S.. F.Z.S. Fantails visit Mr T. A. Bryce's garden .and plantations at Kimbolton, about 120 miles north-west of Wellington, early in May each year, and stay until the end of August. He has not found their nests there. Every fine morning in the season he sees them flitting amongst the branches of a wattle tree in a sunny place, near his house. They spend about half an hour there before dispersing. He .accounts for their fearlessness by the fact that other birds, some of Them proverbially quarrelsome, do not molest them. Even the Australian magpies, "‘bold, joalcais, and overbearing, waging bitter warfare against the tuis," do not interfere with Mr Bryce’s particular friends. IA few weeks ago he saw a solitary magpie, sitting motionless. A fanfail. flitting about, at times almost touched the magpie, which, evidently, was interested in. perhaps charmed by. the smaller bird’s actions. Mr Bryce writes: "1 have seen variation in the .markings on fantails. East vear and the previous season 1 saw one with a tail that was white, with the exception of the two outside feathers, which were greyish-brown. This year there is one with the same character, perhaps tho same bird, and another whose fail is white except for the two middle feathers, which are jet black. Grey warblers are fairly plentiful here, and. are increasing. Although there is no native bush near, they slay through the year.’’ He admirably describes the feelings of many New Zealanders in the following sentences:—“l experience great pleasure in watching my feathered friends. The effect on me is to unfold delightful memories of happy boyhood days, spent in roaming through (Tie bush, often studying birds that, seldom or never are seen now.’’

“Tlie rifleman wren is one of the most assiduous of New Zealand birds that search tree trunks for food.” Mr J. G. Myers, Biological Laboratory, Wellington, and Mr ft. Atkinson, who have collected evidence that forest-birds have a good influence, write. “It seldom wanders to leaves and twigs. Those are tho beat of a corns that includes the grey warbler, the brown creeper, (he whitehead, and the yellowbead. A close scrutiny of slender, swaying, terminal twigs a patient assiduity and an added agility, shown in the greywarbler’s fluttering ‘movements in order to take insects from twigs too slender to bear its tiny weight, and in the beautiful acrobatic performances of the three other species. The grey warbler, in taking insects on the wing, and even oceasionall.y chasing in the air moths it has dislodged, is a transition to another group which captures’ insects almost solely in the air. Elere come those expert fly-catchers, the pied and black fantails, with their familiar habit, of sitting alert on a twig, from which they dash alter flying insects. In doing so, they gracefully perform marvellous aerial evolutions. The clicking of the tiny bristlefringed mandibles as they snap on an insect often may be heard distinctly. The kingfisher, the shining cuckoo, and ’the long (ailed cuckoo, all of which have n habit of darting on insects from positions of vantage, possibly belong to this group. New Zealand’s kingfisher. unlike the Old Country’s kingfisher, lives to only a relatively small extent on fish; most rf its food consists of insects. The morepork owl, which fakes the whole forest for its hurfting-ground. pounces on its prey, again mostly insects in the air.”

A solitary shag, apparently a member of the white-throated species, took up its residence for about two weeks this month on a pine tree, some 60 feet hig*h, in Hagley Park, Christchurch, close to the Avon, almost opposite Salisbury street, where it was seen sometimes sitting on the topmost branch, surveying the park and the streets and housetops. The long-named species to which it belongs—Phalacrocorax, brevirostris—frequents fresh water rivers and lagoons rather than coasts, but its appearance some eight miles up the Avon, ina park that introduced birds have come to regard as their own, is unusual. Most members of the species feed on eels, when eels are available, and on fish, and-shrimps and other small creatures, of the water are not unacceptable. Strong on the wing, these shags often rise high in the air and circle. When seen from below, Sir Walter Bullor states, their narrow bodies and long necks and tails giye them the appearance of flying crosses. They are credited with a_ particular liking for waterfalls in the North Island. In some districts there they are known to residents as river crows.

They formerly had extensive nesting places near Lake Taupo and Lake Rotorua, using low scrub on the shores of lakes and lagoons and making nests of broken twigs and sticks, loosely placed together, with, perhaps, an upper layer of soft dry grass. Taupo Maoris, claiming proprietary rights over the nesting places, collected the young birds in the season and potted them in fat. There is a record of a European having accompanied e party to the Tauranga River, Lake Taupo, and having seen about 400 young birds collected in one day. ft would he interesting to know • if white,th routed shags are plentiful in that district still.

Many years ago, Sir Walter Buller, descending the bank of the Waikato River, near the Huka Falls, entered a small rocky, cavern named Ethel’s Cave in honour of Mrs Ethel Vincent, who discovered it. The arched roof was covered thickly with hanging ferns. The entrance was protected and shaded by a group of tree ferns which grew at the edge of the water. Not the Toast interesting sight as he sat in the cavern, was about 12 white-throated shags, which passed and repassed in the misty spray of the ffills, and swam up and down aq immense natural sluiccbox formed by rocks.

A rat. at the end of last; month, was imprisoned for several days in the courthouse of ihc Magistrate’s Court at Wairoa, Hawke's Bay. It had no food. It gnawed several parts in order to escape, hut failed. It then attacked a soft panel at I he. bottom of the outer door, and succeeded. Air R. Frizzelie, clerk of the court, states that the- hole made through tho panel had a slant from each side and that there was a.ridge in the middle of the part gnawed, supplying evidence that the prisoner, being unable to escape by its own efforts, obtained the help of’a mate, which worked from the outside, while the prisoner worked from the inside.

An admirer of New Zealand’s flora. Mr A. -Marshall, 37 Seddon street, Hamilton. Waikato, slates that the scarlet mistletoe grew’ plentifully in the Rangitotara Valley, on tho Molueka River, Nelson Province,' when be was a boy. A specimen of that plant was found growing on an apple tree in an orchard owned by Air Marshall’s father. The hunch was 18 inches in diameter. He saw another bunch growing on n hawthorn hedge that was four feet in diameter. He often saw the scarlet mistletoe in the bush at Nelson. It usually was a parasite on the beech tree, but easily could be grafted on an apple tree.