THE NATURALIST

Otago Witness, Issue 3769, 8 June 1926, Page 82

THE NATURALIST

NESTING SHAGS.

By

Cryptos.

(Fob tub Witness.) As a general rule, shags are solitary and somewhat stately, and cold in their habits and actions, Whether on the coast or inland they are seldom observed to hunt in numbers, but it is eoimnon to find large numbers, and often varying species, gathered in rookeries during the spring for breeding purposes. H. Guthrie-Sinith, in "Mutton Birds and OtlieV Birds,” gives excellent accounts of the rookeries of ewart Island. H -re the pied Shag, the frilled shag, and the whitc-tluoated shag breed in the same communities, and by day perch together in the same roosting quarters. “In a region so swept by gaies as Stewart Island,” he says, “shelter must be the point, chiefly considered in the establishment of a rookery. There must be timber of a suitable sort with candela-bra-like forks, wherein the nests can be safely set. Fishing grounds must not be too far distant; and finally, their must be deep water close at hand, well provided with snags and rocks, whereon tile youngsters, fledged, hut incapable of flight, can clamber, flap, and perch.” Such conditions are to be found in many places in Paterson Inlet, where the great ironwood trees stretch their forked branches far over the waters of sheltered inlets, and the deeper water close at hand abounds in fish. The nests, built of brandies and twigs securely jammed in the forks of the trees, appear to be occupied year after year, and, as the new addition is added to the older structure, a column results sometimes up to five feet in height. The leaves and liranchlet tips are used to line the nest part on top. The number of eggs in a clutch vary from three to five, and are closely incubated, one or other of the parents always being on the nest. Often, whilst one is sitting on the eggs, or covering the young, its mate will remain sociably perched on the rim of the stick platform. As the chicks are hatched and grow, the parents will often stand upright for long times facing one another. As Mr GuthrieSinitli says; “Shags of this breed (pied shags) appear to possess for their little ones rather the practical affection of a just step-mother than a parent's tender love; and the cries of the little ones, X imagine, are mostly set down to be ‘just nonsense,' not to be enctfnraged. “Standing upright on the nest with an absent air and cold, grey, distrait eyes fixed on the distant sea and sky, the parent bird will for minutes at a time endure unmoved the importunities of her family'. She is a study in detacle ment—immovable, cold, and’ statuesque —whilst immediately beneath her one. or more often the whole batch, of youngsters sit up, yammering, their long necks stretched to the utmost, and wriggling and shivering in expectancy. The cadence of their perfectly-monotonous whine in its regular rise and fall is precisely like that part of an ass’s bray when tlic “liee” and “haw” are sounded on air inhaled. In that attitude, and with that cry, for minutes together they beseech, with the reiteration of a litany, their mother to hear them. When perhaps tlie limit lias been readied, or when, as I think more probable, she merely requires a change of position, she will proceed, without so much as a glance or toudi, to sit on them. The whining ceases at once. . . . and she sits on her brood, complacent and cool, and about as emotional as one of those dish covers representing in cheap ware a broody lien.” YV lien about to feed the young the parent bird stands upright and at full height. With her mo.utli held high above the excited chicks, she begins to open it more and more widely; then in one long uninterrupted, unspasmodic retch it is lowered until the chick's head and half of the chick’s neck disappear into this reservoir. During this process the diicks are often pegged down on tlie nest in a most murderous fashion as tlie parent presses downwards in an endeavour to help the youngster to reach his meal. Sometimes tlie chick will emerge half-choked, with a morsel too large for it, which will then bo rcabsorlied by tlie thrifty parent. Slings, when preparing to alight on tlie nest, are curious to watch, as they descend from a height with legs straddled and webbed feet wide spread. When passing over a shaggery tlie birds are scrupulously careful never to foul tlie community beneath. Mr C. Lewis, in speaking of the black shag of Lake r.ilesniere (“Animals of New Zealand”: Hutton and Drummond, p. 310), says; “The large black shag is a bird of heavy and laborious flight, but on occasions I have seen him develop an amount of speed to which no other bird in my experience lias afforded a parallel i » s . T'lio course wl)icli them birds

took under normal conditions might be said to be along the outer edge of a semi-circle. At times on the homeward route they had to encounter a heavy easterly breeze. It was on such days as these that they came home at a pace which was literally terrific. On arriving at the hill at the mouth of Lake Forsyth they began to sail round and round in a spiral fashion, ever mounting higher and higher, until they attained an altitude sufficient for their purpose; then, half crossing their wings, they simply fell the two miles or so to their home. TII3 weight of their bodies, the poise they assumed, the height from which they descended, and the distance which they had to travel, combined to produce a rate of speed which was almost incredible. At intervals of a second or two they changed their position, leaning slightly to right or left alternately. Brushing the top of the last spur, they descended to within a few inches of the sea, where, bonding upwards in a graceful curve, they landed on their nests with but a single flap of their wings. I have sei ana shot, a cock pheasant floating down a gully; but I never felt like beginning to get anywhere near one of these oiack shags. . . thf noise occasioned by the rushing of their pinions in their swerving Hight was considerable, *u»d whenever 1 heard the roaring sound which heralded their approach, 1 could not help recalling: ‘And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind.’ ” H. Gut’.lie,-Smith also describes the rookery of the Stewart Island shag on the rock Kane-te-toe, which lies eastward of the Old Neck, and nbout eight and a-half miles from Half Moon Bay. He rather aptly describes this ; s “a community of thieves.” Here, an area about one hundred and eighty feet long by eighty broad, is devoted to breeding. Each nest is a squat, compact pillar, with a base probably years old, and composed of consolidated sea-wrack and guano. Tlie top of each pillar is slightly concave, and there, on a bod of fouled seaweed, lie the eggs or young. The nests are equidistant, and tend to form rows, with alleys between, along which the’ ''entremost birds have to venture when about to leave the breeding quarters. Since no shag can lly upwards. each has to waddle to the edge with awkward gait, stepping high, and with legs widely spread apart, lowered head, feathers tightly compressed, screamed at by every sitting bird, and barely oitf of pecking distance. All along the route heads are reared aloft, and the nestlings are as tierce as the adults, and as eager to tug at any feathers haply within reach. This pleasure is denied only to the most central birds, where nests are tLv best protected in situation, and most enjoyed by those birds whose nests are wind-blown and spray-beaten. The nests on the southern edge of this ground are never finished, since thieving, robbery, and strife are so rampant that no pair of shags can complete building, let alone lay and sit. Right throughout the community this thieving is indulged in. Birds have been seen to take up eggs from a nest, and cast them aside, and again to ransack all tlie bedding from a neighbouring nest containing helpless chicks.