RARE NEW ZEALAND BIRDS

Otago Witness, Issue 3197, 23 June 1915, Page 70

RARE NEW ZEALAND BIRDS

A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY. IN THE NELSON PROVINCE. WELLINGTON, June 19. A remarkable discovery of bird life has been made by Mr R. E. Clouston, mining engineer, of Rockville, in Colingwood, Nelson district, recently. Mr Clouston knows a great deal about bird life in New Zealand, and it fell to his lot, while exploring the hinterland of this district in the wild country (of poor land) known as the Gouland Downs, some 26 miles from Rockville, to discover an entire colony of birds of a species that are becoming admittedly rare and in some cases believed to be extinct. He could hardly believe his senses on coming into contact with a rookery of the great kiwi (Apteryx liaasiti) —not a few stray families, but thousands of them, sporting and grubbing about in patches of tussock land, which alternated with clumps of virgin bush; and not only kiwis (big mottled fellows), but thousands of kakapos (the night parrot, so rare that an advertisement appeared in an Auckland paper a few months ago offering £BO for a pair of them). Mr Clouston arrived here with 25 of tho big kiwi. “I’ve been a bird man all rny life,” said Mr Clouston, “and have travelled all over New Zealand, and have never seen anything like it. It is a really wonderful discovery from a scientific point of view, and will mean tho preservation of tho various species. These birds I have with mo are to be liberated on Little Barrier Island, which, of course, is a sanctuary. Not only are there kiwi and kakapos on the block, but there are Blue Mountain duck by tho dozen, saddlebacks (worth £lO each), New Zealand robins, wrens, owls, Cook’s petrels (rain bird), koas, kakas, tui, makomako, warblers, riflemen, creepers (very rare), Maori hens, fantails, tomtits, and pigeons. It was a harvest of rarities. The kiwis are there because feed is good. I found great worms from 4ft to sft in length, tho longest one I measured being 4ft lOin. “As soon as I found them I communicated with Sir Francis Bell, and asked him to have the block (it is Crown land) desanctuary, and that has been done. It was gazetted some days ago. In tho meantime nows of the find had got about, and the place has been visited by men interested in bird life, among them being Mr Jams Drummond and Mr Edgar Stead, of Christchurch, Professor Cotton, Dr Thompson (of the Dominion Museum), and Fred Sparrow. They are all as enthusiastic as I am. I have made a pet of one of the big kakapos. He stands 3ft high, weighs 221 b, and has got an enormous beak. The children feed him out of their hands. He has beautifully green plumage, with long whiskers, and when he is up a tree you cannot tell him from the moss on the trunk.” Mr Clouston adds that the birds are so valuable that the sanctuary will have to b 6 given adequate protection at once. _ otherwise there will bo wholesale poaching by those prepared to trade on the discovery.