IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 4066, 16 February 1932, Page 8

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

THE FAR NORTH. BIRDS SEEN ON NINETY MILE BEACH. By J. Drummond. F.L.S., F.Z.S. The prettiest siaht Air E. T. Frost saw when motoring for 60 miles along the Ninety Alile Beach, west coast of North Auckland, was thousands of white-fronted terns, dressed in pearly grey and wearing black caps drawn down over the back of the neck. They stood in regular formation like soldiers on parade. A fresh breeze blew over the beach, anj they stood on a stretch of dry sand, all facing the wind, their long tapering wings extended above their bodies. “A remarkable and beautiful sight” is Mr Frost’s description of their spectacular demonstration. His greatest admiration was claimed by two gannets in tranquil Spirits’ Bay, at the extreme north. He watched them drop out of the air, dive into the water, and come up almost immediately ? fish- Sitting on a high chff that overlooks the sea, he was above the gannets. As the sea was calm and surprisingly clear, he could see fish amongst kelp on the reefs, and he understood how the famous divers, having inherited the faculty through generations of training, have become some of the world’s greatest experts.

Gannets in the Tropics are called boobies by sailors. They certainly are not boobies as far as making their living is concerned, as many a shallow-water fish knows. In any case, they are not called boobies in r "i Zealand, nor yet Solari goose, one of the titles of the Old Country’s gannet, used by R. L. Stevenson in a vivid chapter on the Bass Rock in “ Catriona.” lakapu,” the Maoris’ name, has been dropped, largely by educated Maoris themselves. In New Zealand the gannet is the gannet and nothing else. It favours the northern parts of the Dominion, but visits other parts as far south as Stewart Island, Chalky Sound, Puysegur Point, and even the Solander Islands. Always it is a coastal bird, powerful and not ungraceful on the wing, but ungainly and awkward on land, like the albatross. In the Alaoris’ fabulous battle between the sea birds and the land birds the gannet, in recognition of its strength, was in the vanguard of the sea forces. New Zealand’s gannet extends its range to Australia and Tasmania, but no further. New Zealand’s northern outliers, the Kermadec Islands, have the blue-faced booby, p.entiful in tropical seas. Two brown boobies, belonging to another tropical species, have straggled to the mainland of New Zealand, and one to the Kermadecs.

Apart from the Maoris’ natural history, the first record of New Zealand’s gannet is associated with a merry oldtime Christmas dinner. On December 24, 162 years ago, Captain Cook's Endeavour, after leaving the Bay of Islands and sailing north, sighted several small islands, probably the Three Kings. Sir Joseph Banks, naturalist on board, wrote in his diary: “December 24—From a boat they killed several gannets or Solan geese, so like European ones that they are hardly distinguishable from them. As it was the humour of the ship to keep Christinas in the old-fashioned way, it was resolved to make a goose pie for to-morrow’s dinner. 25th, Christmas Day:—Our goose pie was eaten with great approbation, and in the evening all hands were as drunk as our forefathers used to be upon like occasions.”

. The most conspicuous bird during Mr Frost’s drive on the long beach was the large, black-backed gull, sometimes called the. : Dominican gull, its costume resembling the black and white habits of the Dominican friars. These sea birds hardly deigned to move out of the way of . the speeding car. They were present in large numbers. As huge Pacific rollers swept.up the beach they often waded into the shallow water and took unwary toheroas that showed themselves above the sand. The shellfishes were quickly seized, carried up into the air, dropped on the hard sand, cracked open, and eaten, a performance that, perhaps, rivals the gannets’ feats of diving. The gull that, won the prize in the first place often was robbed of it by another gull that happened to be closer to the ground when the toheroa fell.

Smaller red-billed gulls flew about continually and swooped in when they saw an opening while people dug for toheroas in the sand. These gulls know if anybody is digging with spade or hands. A

flock soon gathers and goes within 8 yard or two of the digger. Mr Frost states that they seem to have a sort of wireless, and that news that something is doing is broadcast up and down the beach. The godwit—kuaka in Maorifamous migrant to and from Siberia, graces the beach in large flocks; but aS godwits are shot from motor cars, a practice that should be condemned and stopped, they are wary, and are not easily approached. Mr Frost reports that on stormy days they seem disinclined to taka wing. They are slaughtered then in large numbers.

Here and there a solitary blue heron was seen, flying low. Blue herons are less plentiful on the West Coast than, on the East Coast. They may be seen in greater numbers on the shores of Doubtless Bay, on the east coast of the peninsula. They can wade in calm waters there, and offshore there are rockly islets on which they can find suitable nesting places. This species, evidently, is also called the reef-heron, known to Alaoris as matuku-moana, dark slatey grey, a frequenter of sheltered, rocky coasts, sometimes visiting harbours and inland lakes, A pair for many years has visited the Sumner Estuary. Mr AV. R. B. Oliver, director of the Dominion Aluseum, states that the nest usually is in a cave on the sea coast or on an islet. It is three or four feet wide, and is made of sticks. The hollow in which the delicate pale greenish blue eggs are laid is about 15 inches in diameter.

Dotterels, decked in their nuptial costumes and looking smart in their reddish vests, were fairly plentiful on both coasts of the peninsula. Mr Frost saw a young dotterel that could just fly. He found that some dotterels go a fair distance inland to make their nests in hollows in the sand or earth. He writes: “Their nests have been found in a paddock where cows grazed. They do not seem to mind the presence of human beings, coming quite close. When nesting, they follow the usual tricks of their family, leading intruders from the place.” Air H. GuthrieSmi'h found that on Stewart Island an adult, as soon as it leaves a nest in the sand, blurs the outline. Air Frost saw many dotterels at the northern end of the Ninety Mile Beach among low sand dunes and on the wide bed of a creek into which his party turned with the car.

On Pandora Beach, western end of Spirits’ Bay, several lanky white-headed stilts strode the sand. Evidently there was a nest close to where Air Frost stood on a shingle bed. but he had no time to search for it. The .stilts at times became excited. They flew close to the stranger, making short darts and quick turns, and uttering sharp barking notes like the bark of a small dog. Finally, Air Frost refers to the large, handsome Caspian tern, a solitary bird, often, on the Ninety Alile Beach, seen on the skirts of a fiock of the smaller terns. It is present on almost every New Zealand coast, but not in large numbers. All beaches on that northern peninsula are its home. The species is widely distributed, ranging from parts of Europe and Asia to North America from slightly beyond the Arctic Circle as far south as California and Florida, and to Africa, the Alalay Archipelago, Australia, and New Zealand.

Air J. Peers, Alount Alaunganui, Bay of Plenty, reports that, while playing on the harbour beach at low tide, some children found a giant jellyfish three feet in diameter and from nine inches to 12 inches thick. It had mauve and orange tints, and, when touched, expelled a thick orange fluid. On the beach were many other jellyfish, from very small ones to ones about six inches in diameter. Some jellyfishes measure four feet or more across their discs. The dominant colour is milky biue, but exquisite tints of blue, green, red, purple, brown, yellow, and orange are seen in some