The Bird Lite of Solomon Island.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 302, 21 December 1931, Page 6

The Bird Lite of Solomon Island.

An Amazing Sight.

“ Quarter of Million Can Be Seen in Shy/'

“'J'HERE ARE MILLIONS of them. At

dusk they fill the air like a swarm of bees, and at any one moment a quarter of a million can be seen in the sky.”

From that description of the birds at Solomon Island, it may be gathered that Mr E. F. Stead, who stayed there for five weeks to observe the bird life, and especially the petrels, had an ample field for his research.

44 To see the petrels returning to the island at the fall of evening is one of the finest sights the bird world has to show.” he added. The main purpose of Mr Stead's stay on the island was to observe the bird life there, to see what species were to be found, and in particular to note the habits of the six kinds of petrels which had their nests on the island. The family of petrels included a great number of different types of birds, from the little stormy petrel—not so big as a blackbird—to the wandering and royal albatross, with the biggest wing-epread of all birds. Mutton-birds were also grouped with the petrels and belonged to a subfamily of the shear-waters.

Mr Stead returned on Saturday from the island, which is off the south-west point of Stewart Island. With him irr-the party were Major R. A. Wilson, of Bulls, and for part of the time Sir John Hanham and Mr E. Hay, of Pigeon Bay. To go there Mr Stead had chartered the schooner Britannia from Bluff, taking two days in fair weather to make the journey, though when Mr Hay went down he was at sea ten days. An Amazing Sight.

44 On these particular islands the land birds are absolutely as they were before they were visited by white men. It is amazing to see birds that are nearly extinct on the mainland just as common as ever. One day I saw in a small tree twenty yards from our hut saddle-backs, robins, tuis, a moki-moki and a yellow-breasted parrakeet, while a weka grubbed about in the fern below. A robin with a nest close by used to come regularly into the huts for crumbs, or when we were chopping wood was always on the look-out for grubs. It was impossible to go anywhere, and stop for twenty seconds without one of these little fellows—grey, with a yellowish breast—put. ting in an appearance to see if there was any food about. Danger from Cats and Rata 44 It is dreadful to think—in viesv of the wide variety of bird life there—th4t by the least carelessness rats or cats may get on to these islands, for their presence means the absolute extermination of all land birds. You can tell as soon as you get near an island, by the number of birds seen or heard, whether either cats or rats have been introduced. What happens is that rats get on to the islands and interfere with the mutton-birding—l believe that they eat the chicks when they are very small—and then the mutton-birders introduce the cats to deal with the rats. That is the death-knell of every land bird in the place. At one island we went to we were greeted by dead silence.”