IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2978, 12 April 1911, Page 81

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

(Bx James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.)

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND.

“Just the place for native birds,” is Mr J. Anderson's description ox Kahurangi Point -Lighthouse, halfway between Westport and Cape b are well, and 26 miles from the nearest settlement. It is a place where there are “thousands of acres of lovely bush and deep, dark gullies of nikau palms and ferns.” Gcdwiis appear in sma.l numbers occasionally ail through the summer and the autumn, and when the tide is. low they may be seen running about on the flat recks or wading in the shallow water. They do not an leave together for the northern migration, and some of them loiter until April. Paradise ducks frequent the rivers and the big creeks. In winter they go in flocks. Later on they are seen in pairs. Each pair seems to have a place of its own, where a nest is made and the young are reared. Mr Anderson has found much amusement noting the care pa rad he ducks take of their young. He has often come upon a family suddenly in a sunny bend of a river or creek. As soon as the female saw him she flew about 50 yards away, alighted on the beach, and when he drew near began to run along and drag her wing, which had all the appearances of a broken limb. In the meantime the young ducks had had opportunity to hide. When everything was sale the female’s lameness suddenly vanished, and she flew away. The long-tailed cuckoo is not a frequent visitor at the lighthouse, but the shining cuckoo is very common. Both these migrants usually arrive in October and leave in March.

The kiwi is fairly plentiful, and is heard whistling at night with a note which is compared to the whistle of an electric tram. The kakapo, which is another nocturnal bird, is, more plentiful back in the forest ranges than near the lighthouse. Kakas are sometimes p e:ent in large numbers. They gather when the miro berries are ripe, and scon leave again for other parts,, They are always lively and noisy, but they seem to be more timid than the kakas Mr Anderson has seen in Southland. Tuis in the district also seem to be lees friendly than southern members of the species. When the nikau palm berries are ripe, and when the weather. is cold in the forests away from the coast, pigeons gather near the lighthouse in large numbers. They are then very tame, and offer no objection to human beings going clcee to them. It is somewhat disconcerting to learn that "all down the Wait Coast, where there are sawmills, flaxmills, surveyors' camps, and mining camps, they get a bad time, and are shot in season and out of season."

Fantails are the lighthouse-keepers' special favourites. When the men are working near the forest, these charming little birds keep them, company, fom:times, of course, they venture into the dwelling, and in one afternoon will rid the house of every fly. Wekae are also well represented in numbers. " They are very tame if they think you are friendly. They seem to be able to read a person's thoughts. If, for instance, one has been pulling things up out of your garden, and there is a score to settle with him, he carefully keeps out of your way. They are all born thieves. They will take anything left about if it is not too heavy. They enter the fowlhouss and take the eggs from any nest they can reach. They even take young chickens. In the garden they peck holes in the marrows, pumpkins, and onions, and utterly destroy every vegetable they touch. But it is a'mest impossible to be angry with them." The tomtits are also plentiful. Whereever the lighthouse-keepers are at work gardening or clearing bush, these little birds are seen picking up grubs and other insects. On one occasion, when Mr Anderson was grubbing shrubs on a hillside, he saw a tomtit which, appaiently, was having an exceptionally good time amongst the grubs. The bird repeatedly flew away to a tree after it had caught some grubs. On examining a place in a fork of the branches, Mr Anderson found a small hollow completely filled with the grubs that had been carried away. Parrakeets are seldom seen near the lighthouse, but are more plentiful in the back from the coast. The red-fronted and the yellow-fronted species are present. Both build nests in holes in trees. They peck the bark around the holes, and the pieces are used in making the nests. Four and five eggs have been found in one nest.

According to Mr A. P. Sharkey, of Rosa, the female tui, unlike the grey warbler, gives the young long-tailed cuckoo short shrift when she finds the usurper in her nest. He says that the strange egg is hatched all right, but as soon a-s the chick breaks its way out oi the egg it is ruthlessly slaughtered by the female tui. and is flung out of the nest. He has found dead cuckoos under tui's nests on many occasions, and has seen the tragedy. If the female tui catches either male or female cuckoo on her nest there is a dead cuckoo in lees than five minutes. The outraged owner

of the ives4 utters her war-cry, and in an instant theie is a gathering of the clams, and angry tuis attack the invade* and peck it to .death. The female bellbird, on the other hand, hatches cuckoos' eggs and brings up the young as her own. Since the grey warbler has become ie&l plentiful them formerly in Mr Sh_:rkey'« district, the kind office of foster-parent has been fiJLed by the English thrush, Mr Murdoch, Mayor of Kumaia, witnessed an incident of bird-life in his own garden. Two thrushes, for two years in succession, had reared families iiT a nest amongst some foliage in a corner of the verandah, and a pair of blackbirds built a nest in a macrocarpa • tree close by(. Boys robbed the blackbirds' nest of the young. The parents, on returning home with food, were greatly annoyed at the loss. They flew around for a time, and darted into the thrushes' nest with the food they had collected. Day by day they continued to feed the young thrushes, in spite of battles with the parent thrushes. Mr Sharkey concludes his notes with the story of a torn-tit, .whose actions have amused the men employed at Perry's mill at Takatahi. Whenth« mill is stopped at the lunch hour the bird flies on and off the big saw. When tin saw is placed in motion aga'n it tries to fly on to it, and is prevented from dashing on to death only by the pressure of air from thi* revolving wheels.

Mr F. A. D. Cox writes from Whangamarino, in the Chathams :—Soma tiir.4 ago one of my sons, whi!e on the big lagoon on this island, saw a whit? specimen, of the black 6wan (Cygncs atratus). As far as our observations go, it is. the first occurrence of albinism in black swans in -.this island, and I have not heard anyone eke reco.d the fact. There are very few wild ducks on Pitt Island, an island of this group, but a settler there told me that during the shooting season, when they are disturbed on this island, they fly over to Pitt Island.