DO OUR HAWKS MIGRATE?

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12896, 6 February 1906, Page 3

DO OUR HAWKS MIGRATE?

A contributor to tbe Natural History column of the Melbounfe " Argus" wrote a few days ago, as follows:—"In 1888, or the year of the Exhibition in Melbourne, I was coming over from New Zealand to Sydney in the Waihora, and on the third day out I and some friends were sitting on deck in the afternoon. My attention was drawn to a flock of birds, about a mile away, at the stern of the boat, and coming towards ns. As they got nearer I could see they were not gulls by their flight, and when they got close I remarked that- they were not sea birds, but land birds, and hawks at that. We wer« not long before we were convinced, for they came up and circled round the boat. One or two of them settled on the yardarm of -the topsail, so that we could see them plainly. Most of the birds seemed so frightened of the passengers walking up and looking at them that they went on their course. They were going exactly on the same course that the boat was going, and steering direct for New South Wales, which, no doubt, they reached long before .we did, for they were out of sight in less than a half-hour. I counted 23 of them. They were of a dark colour (brown), and are_ very common in New Zealand in the spring and summer months in and about the large swamps that are found in the North Island, but I saw then* in it-he "winter there, and often wondered what became of them. This experience gave me the answer. I have seen them once since, each time in the month of April. They return to New Zealand in the spring months." •

Mr Donald Macdonald, editor of it-he Natural History Notes, comments on the foregoing The hawks -which C.H. mentions as frequenting the swamps of New Zealand are harriers, and are identical with the| Australian, harrier, or swamp hawk. It is etrangie that the late -Captain Hutton, in his work on. New ealand birds, makes no mention of the disappearance! of harriers in winter, and their migration is not noted by any New Zealami naturalist. ' Silence upon the point goes for little in face of actual observation, and though C.H.'3 proofs are not absolutely conclusive, they are distinctly reasonable. In face of the fact that the New Zealand lines of bird migration are almost invariably northward, towards New Gtrinea, where land formerly existed which is now submerged, C.H. has opened up an interesting subject, -uponi which I should like to hear the views of ornithologists. All bird migrations in Australasia are north and south."