NESTING BLACKCAPS

Taranaki Daily News, 28 November 1934, Page 4

NESTING BLACKCAPS

ROOKERY OFF PARITUTU CROWDED BREEDING GROUNDS. A FASCINATING SPECTACLE. BIRDS TAKE TOLL OF HERRINGS. Preying on the herring shoals in the shallows, sea birds can at present be seen all day fishing along the New Plymouth seafront, particularly near . the wharves and the railway station. Singly or in groups of 30 to 40, they swoop and dive ceaselessly from dawn to sunset. There is a splash, a struggle and then, With a fish dangling from its beak, each bird flies off either to an island off Pari tutu or to Lion Rock, further seaward. There the’bird colonies are established for the breeding season. From Mikotahi or Round ROck hundreds of birds can be observed nesting or feeding the chicks. However, a closer inspection Is less pleasant. Climbing the jagged rock-face the human intruder is followed by the basilisk stare of huge blue crabs lurking in the crevices and angry parent birds circle overhead with deafening clamour and make vicious rushes to repel the invasion. Looking up, the adventurer sees the gaping bill and pale, malicious eyes Of a swooping gull. The delicate blackcaps are more silent but more effective. The long, sharp bills are like spearpoints aimed at the face, and it takes a steady-nerved man not to flinch even though he knows the attacks are mainly feinted. The breeding rocks are crowded with young birds, some already losing their first plumage, but the majority merd black-speckled balls of grey or brown fluff.

Lying in the sun on bare rock or among the ice plants, or occasionally On a rough nest of dry twigs, are tho eggs —generally one or two together, large and olive-brown in Colour, blotched With darker markings. Those of the gulls are about two inches long, but the paler blackcaps’ eggs are somewhat smaller. Watching the birds guarding the nests or feeding the chicks is a fascinating pastime for an hour. Quarrels spring up continually and the combatants fight savagely. One blackcap the other afternoon fought and routed three intruders one after the other, and then paced up and down beside its chick bowing and gesticulating for all the world like a soapbox politician.

The gulls make a great deal of preliminary fuss OVer their fights, the feathers on their necks Standing erect With excitement. The blackcaps are more effective. They stand head to head swaying like wrestlers. Sometimes one flies straight upwards into the air for a few feet, then drops like a stone on the back of its Opponent. The chicks look On without interOst and are Often knocked over by the struggling bodies of th&ir parents. When they see anything so alarming as a human being they Waddle hurriedly away in droves, hustled on by screaming parents.

The noisy red-billed gull On the breeding rocks is known zoologically as taruS scopulinus. There is, however, a difference Of Opinion concerning the actual identity of the blackcaps or sea martins. According to one prominent Taranaki naturalist they are a species Of Antarctic petrel. He says they nest annually with other sea-birds oh Lion ROck, Moturoa, Saddleback and the islands off Paritutu, where blue herons also breed in the ledges and fissures of the rocks. Other observers, however, claim that the blackcaps are really white-fronted terns, a bird more or less familiar to Dominion Ornithologists, particularly in the South' Island.