Fairy Sea-Bird Nests In Burrow.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19258, 20 December 1930, Page 8

Fairy Sea-Bird Nests In Burrow.

Nature Notes.

By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. JTLYING IN FLOCKS, with a zig-zag movement and sharp motions of the wings, seldom sitting on the water, but easily recognised when on flight by a dark mark like W on their expanded wings, the whalebirds are one of the most attractive sights at sea near the New Zealand coast, and further out.

They are grouped in literature under the title Prion, and the most plentiful, the prettiest, and the daintiest species has been named the fairy Prion. It seems to have difficulty in fighting the storms, as individual members of the species often are washed up dead on the coast. Mr W. R. B. Oliver, curator of the Dominion Museum, states that, on account of their dove-grey cloaks, fairy Prions are hardly visible at a distance, but they become conspicuous when they turn in their flight and expose their under surfaces, and at close quarters the dark W shows up. Burrows in the soft earth are these seabirds’ homes. In this respect they follow the practice of many other members of the order of petrels. Fairy Prions make their homes on the Little Barrier Island, the Poor Knights, the Chickens, Kapiti, the Brothers and Stephen Island (Cook Strait), and islands off Stewart Island and the Chathams. On Bounty Island, in the south, where there is no soil, they nest on rocky ledges. The illustration snows a Prion and its egg, taken out of the burrow’.