IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22020, 1 August 1933, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

THE OWLS. ENEMIES OF SMALL BIRDS. By J. Drdmmond. F.L.S.. F.Z.S. Further evidence that the German owl has spread from the South Island to the North Island is supplied by Mr K. Hoggard, of the staff of the Lands and Deeds Department, Wellington. Several weeks ago his aunt, who lives on the Western Hills, Lower Hutt, heard a commotion amongst native birds that visit native bush on her property. When she went to discover the cause she saw a German owl swoop down upon a f antail and carry it off. With a .22 rifle she followed the owl and killed it, to the joy of the company of defenceless little birds. On the same subject, Mr G. H. Smith has written from Pukekohe: —"As there appears to be some doubt as to when and by whom this owl was introduced into New Zealand, I would like to throw a little light on the subject. Whilst employed by Messrs Murray, Roberts, and Co. on their Gladbrook Station, Middlemarch, 64 German owls were given into my care. "They were the remnants of a consignment of 100 imported by the Otago Acclimatisation Society at the end of 1906. They were fed on good merino mutton for nearly two months, and were liberated on or about February 14, 1907." New Zealand was congenial to the German owl from the first. Soon after the incident recorded by Mr Smith, Mr A. C. Iversen, of Earnscleugh, reported that his orchard had been raided year after year by tens of thousands of small introduced birds. He tried to drive them away by shooting into the flocks, but without avail. He decided to abandon fruitgrowing. On the liberation of the German owl the position changed immediately. He no longer found it necessary to waste a single charge of shot. Sparrows, sonu thrushes, blackbirds, green linnets, and white-eyes—leaders in the raids —disappeared. Rats, mice, and young rabbits were destroyed, and caterpillars, grubs, and beetles were fed to the young owls.

Mr Iversen in one season produced 2000 cases of fruit. Without the help of the German owl he would have had a poor crop for the market. His grain crop also was saved. He could not accuse the owl of doing harm in any direction. Watching it closely, he found that it nested once a vear and that there were four young in* each nest. The young were fed chiefly on grubs and earthworms. . Ihey seemed to favour the grass-grub m its f-übby stage and as a perfect beetle, or a time the parents gave the young their meals on the nest, later on gradually enticing them out. Each day all went further away, until adults and y° un g disappeared, returning to deal with the pestilent small birds in the orchard.

More chequered experiences befel the owl in England. It was first introduced there 90 years ago by Charles Waterton, owner of Walton Hall, Yorkshire, a man of means and an eccentric naturalist of the old type, a wanderer and a genius, with a passion for adding to knowledge. After wandering in Europe and South America, he lived quietly at Walton Hall. He surrounded his beautiful park with a high wall, protected birds that took refuge there, and made his estate a naturalist's paradise. At Stonyhurst College, where he was educated, he became rat-catcher, fox-taker, and polecat-killer to the institution. One of his pranks was to climb on to the roof of St. Peters, Rome, and place his glove on the pinnacle. He took five German owls from Rome to Walton Hall. They disappeared completely. A generation later, Mr Meade-Waldo turned out 40 in Kent. This attempt succeeded, but less spectacularly than Lord Lilford's importation, 25 years later, in 1889, of a company of German owls into Northamptonshire. These were the stock of most of the German owls in England at present. Their progeny spread faster and faster, and now almost all England is occupied by them.

Reference to the manifold sins and wickedness of the German owl has recalled to the Rev. W. J. Elliott, Ascot avenue, Devonport, experiences with the native morepork owl. After all, an owl is an owl, by nature raptorial, urged irresistibly to use its hooked bill and its well-armed, strong, sharp claws on birds smaller than itself. Although the morepork's deep-throated voice in the twilight, in the evening, in the black night, is music to New Zealanders' ears, it is not above reproach. Before Europeans came to New Zealand there were few rats and no mice in this country, and there were no finches in the avifauna. The morepork took grasshoppers, wetas, and other large insects, but it depended mainly on small native birds. In these days, it doubtless finds more plentiful supplies amongst the hosts of introduced small birds, but it is a forest bird, and still takes a toll from native birds that also lodge in the forests.

With a friendly feeling towards native birds generally, Mr Elliott regards_ the morepork as a sordid creature. This is his indictment: "It attacks many forms of life, including human beings. In my boyhood days, more than 60 years ago, it was much more plentiful than it is now, mainly because there was more bush and shelter. One of my favourite pastimes on Saturday afternoons wae to scour the bush in search of its haunts. With strong bows arid arrows my mates and I shot down every morepork we saw. It was not wanton. We were incited by_ the morepork's indiscriminate destructiveness. I knew that it killed all sorts of native birds; and it took skylarks on their nests at night, seized chickens in the fowl yards, and destroyed young rabbits we tried to rear and tame.

"Even the kingfisher, with its bayonet bill and its skill in attack, was not safe. I saw a morepork, in the shadows of the coming night, dart at a hole in a decaying pukatea tree and drag a kingfisher from its nest. There was evidence that it destroyed rate and mice, but its wickedness induced me to kill it without compunction. It has not changed. I had evidence of this a few months ago, when I spent 10 days on a beach between the Thames and Coromandel. In and around the bush there I counted about 20 species of birds. This was gratifying; but the morepork was amongst them, and I heard the terrified and plaintive cries of sparrows, blackbirds, and other species. I should add that I saw a kingfisher dart at small crabs on the beach of the ebbing tide and also seize a little white-eve in the shrubs and batter it to death on the telegraph wires "

At Pegasus Harbour, Stewart Island, Mr H. Guthrie-Smith was surprised to note that the morepork took even the little diving petrels, which fly in small flocks on the New Zealand coasts, fluttering near the surface of the water, settling down, diving, and flying under water like penguins. He failed to discover how the morepork kills this seabird and afterwards raises such a relatively immense weight many feet perpendicularly from the ground, but morning after morning he found in a morepork's nest in an opening where a storm had wrenched a branch from the trunk of a tree, forming a shallow cup, in which the owner brooded during daylight, sometimes one newlv-killeo diving petrel, sometimes two of them. At first the adult morepork tore the flesh from the bones and gave it to the two young moreporks. Later the young were allowed to help themselves. They reposed peacefully on or beside the masses of flesh, their home having become like a butchers shop.

Mr T. B. Randilands reports? that lampreys go out o£ Kawhia Harbour up the Oparan Iliver, which is tidal, until they reach the Okupata Stream, fresh water. They wend their way up that stream until they meet the Matigapapa Creek, up which they turn. A short distance up that creek there is a waterfall between 80 and 100 feet high. The lower part is perpendicular. Every spring they ascend this fall, zigzagging their way up by clinging to the moss and other vegetation with their sucking mouths; but they ascend at night only. Mr Sandilands, who has been at Oparan for about 25 years, states that every season Maoris catch the lampreys as they ascend the fall. The Maoris choose a wet, misty night for the purpose. He was told that, as it was essential to catch the leader to be sure of a good bag, the Maoris reached the fall before dark and waited for the lampreys.

A resident of Glen Afton, eight miles from Huntly, has sent grubs of the houseborer, with the following complaint:— "They have ruined the moquette on a chesterfield settee and two chairs. The moquette has been eaten bare in countless places. On removing the moquette covering I discovered hundreds of grubs in various stages of growth. I have stripped the settee and chairs of all the moquette and kapoc, leaving only the stuffing of flax fibre. A s far as I am able to ascertain, the flax fibre is free from the grubs, although it may contain egg deposits. I am having great difficulty in combating this pest, which is spreading to other rooms in the house."

Frankly, there does not seem to be an absolutely effective remedy against the borers. As far as' furniture is concerned, the most destructive is a native of New Zealand, the two-toothed longhorn. The best plan for people who seek a remedy is to apply to the Cawthron Institute, Nelson, which is always willing to help. Dr D. Miller, entomologist to the institute, recommends the use of creosote, on timber infested at least. It may be applied with a brush, as a spray, or as a dip. He does not recommend fumigation.