IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 5

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

, STARLINGS’ HABITS. By J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. Many correspondents confirm the statement by Mr G. J. Garland, M.L.C., that starlings visit the flowers of the flax for food. The habit, judging by the number of people who have seen starlings at the flowers, is a common one. Mr T. T. Seccombe, Mangere, Auckland, has seen starlings on flax flowers not in ones or twos, or even in dozens, but in hundreds. Some 20 years ago, he was engaged on drainage works on the Rangitaiki Swamp, Bay of Plenty. There were flax areas close to where he was working. He watched.-starlings operating on the flowers for days on end up and down the drain line as far as they could be seen. They did this in numbers in only the morning up to about 10 o’clock. Later in the day only a few were there.

Opposite St. Peter's Church, Kati Kati, there are tall trees, visited by a tui. The ■ Rev. G. Palmer often has heard it sing there morning and evening. At the vicarage, some distance away, he has a flax bush. This year it threw out two flower stems. One day he saw a bird busy on the flowers. “ Hello, the tui is paying us a visit,” he said. He was surprised to find that the visitor was a starling. He was interested in the incident, because it was the first time he had seen a starling on flax flowers, or on any other flowers. Mr E. D. Pritchard writes from Norman’s Hill road, Onehunga: “ Several times in December and January last I saw starlings, sometmes in small flocks, often singly, excitedly engaged on flax flowers. They apparently had not learnt how to perch- steadily on the stems, which almost are perpendicular. They often had to use their wings in keeping* their position and balance. Dipping their bills deep into the flowers, and ascending the stems flower by flower, they evidently were feeding on the nectar.* With the help of binoculars, their foreheads were seen to be covered with the golden pollen.”

“I have a flax bush about 15 yards from the back door,” Mrs Tregoweth writes from Netherton, Hauraki Plains. “ This summer it was very interesting to watch four starlings go* from flower to flower, sipping the nectar. They visited the bush about three times a day. They went through every flower, stopping for quite a while at some flowers, but just putting their bills in others. They continued their visits until all the flowers had fallen. I thought at first that they were tuis.” Starlings fightin" furiously with tuis over the flax flowers are described y Mrs K. Lyons, Man"atawhiri Valley, near Pokeno. The tuis seem to resent the starlings’ presence. The starlings, shyer than the tuis, allow people almost to touch them while they, in turn, give their attention to the flowers.

One day in December last Mr H. I. Blow, Devonport School, was surprised to see a pair of starlings dipping their bills into flax flowers in the school ground. Mr E. M. Lusher, Market road, Remuera, has seen starlings on flax flowers, their shiny black heads powdered with pollen.” Mr C. N. Lawless, headmaster of the South School. Invercargill, watched a starling work its way up a flax stem, visiting every flower; it seemed to have some of the tui’s bright, eager manner.

Mr J. E. Macalister, Burwood crescent, Remuera, noticed starlings at the flowers of a flax bush on his back lawn three years ago, and every season since. They were very active, and were excited, evidently delighted wit. the food .he flax provided. They behaved the same way as tuis. Mrs H. Ralls, Ladies’ Mile, Ellerslie, writes: “ Starlings are thorough in trying out every open flower. I have watched them from my back door for the past three years. There is a flax bush six yards away. They always begin at the lowest open flowers and work every flower all the way up to the topmost. They come regularly every day in th? season.”

Starlings were an interesting study to the Rev. G. Palmer in the King Country: “Their flight over our home' was v<ry regular, early and. ’ate. The return flight began about 4 p.m. li. flocks of thousands and tens of thousands they made their way towards Mokauiti, where, I, was told, they had a resting place amongst kaekatea trees near a swamp. I visited some settlers late at night, passing one of the starlings ’resting-places. It was 8 o’clock and dark, and I was greatly surprised at fhe birds making a loud noises at that hour of the night. They uttered one prolonged whistling note in unison, like ‘ wb-u-c,’ and then beat tthe air with a flutter of wings. This was repeated again and ag.in. The starlings were roosting, but the movements of their wings made the air vibrate with the noise. When I returned at 11 o’clock all was silent.”

u Mr Seccombe recalls a pair of starlings that decided to build on a four by two tie-beam in a shed. They worked tirelessly, carrying straw, feathers, and other material. As fast as they placed it on. the beam it fell to the floor, until there a. pile a foot high, r while on the beam ,there were only a few pieces. They

then seemed to have a brain-wave, and decided to make their nest in the straw on the floor.. There they hatched three little starlings. Air Seccombe- noticed that the nest was nfestcd with lice. When, later, he looked at the nest, all the young starlings were dead, and all the straw was swarming with lice, and it had to be forked out and burnt.

While Mr Blow does not have a friendly feeling for starlings when they raid orchards and build in the housetop, chimney, or letter box, he aSlmires their persistency at nesting time. He knows of no other bird that absolutely refuses to be driven from its nesting place. Starlings he knew took a fancy to a letter box in a country district. Although the straw was removed repeatedly, the starlings kept on filling the letter box for about three months. The quantity of material they collected and placed in the letter box was amazing. In another district, Mr Blow removed eggs from nests in the walls of a schoolroom, where the owners were making a nuisance of themselves. Again and again he collected an average of three or four eggs from each nest, but the starlings continued to lay until about Christmas, when they relinquished the struggle and left. Mr Blow adds: “ Starlings evidently will return to the same nesting place year after year. They begin to frequent the roofs of buildings about Easter. After the winter is over, they become very active and noisy. The young, after fledging, often mav be seen in the gardens; but about Christmas they disappear, and, apparently, live a community life out in the fields, where enormous flocks may be seen. Mrs Lusher has watched starlings feeding on fruit discarded by pickers in a Nelson orchard, “in this way,’’ she states, proving their usefulness as scavengers.” She has seen great clouds of them circle with a whirring of wings, alight on the apple trees, and hold°a conference, their black bodies showin" up against the last yellowing leaves.

Passing from birds to insects, Mr Seccombe states that, when he was on the drainage works in the Rangitaiki Swamp,, he walked on tracks alongside the drains. Great numbers of crickets on the tracks dispersed in all directions at his approach. Many of them jumped into the drain, and immediately sank or dived. Each took down with it a bubble of air, adhered to any twig or fibie at the bottom of the drain, and stayed submerged for a time. It then let go, arose to the surface and swam ashore. Mr .Seccombe comments on the incident: “It occurred to me that the submergence was protection, as it gave time for danger to pass before “the crickets need expose themselves again. I experimented by throwing clods ahead ?, ln ?‘ . caused them to jump into the dram, but, strangely, I cannot say that I saw a single cricket submerge when this was done. All crickets that went into the water promptly swam ashore. Can anybody explain wliv they dived w hen I walked along, but not when they were disturbed by a clod? ”