Lanky Waders.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20276, 10 April 1934, Page 8

Lanky Waders.

Nature Notes

By James Drummond, F.L.S.. F.Z.S. WELLINGTON RESIDENT saw many pied stilts, their lanky red legs and feet contrasting with their neat black-and-white costumes, near swamps and lagoons at Waikanae on the west coast of Wellington Province, opposite Kapiti Island. Before he saw them, he was made aware of their presence at night by their strange yelping notes, which came down out of the black darkness, apparently from great heights The fantastic impression given by the sounds was that shrill-voiced dogs were rushing along above the clouds. Pied stilts and other stilts —New Zealand has an all-black species—have ✓been given their popular name for reasons obvious to everybody who sees them. In proportion to the size of their bodies, they have slenderer and longer legs than any other birds. As they stride with slow, loping steps over the ground, or wade in shallow water, they look, particularly from a distance, as if they were mounted on stilts. The pied stilt and the black stilt are New Zealand’s exclusive possessions. Their close connection, the white-headed stilt, distinguished by a white collar around the back of its neck, is a species that ranges from New Zealand to Australia and the Molucca Islands. The black stilt is not as lanky as the others, but its uniformly dark plumage, set off with red legs, feet and eyes, gives it a distinguished and very dignified appearance. More than any other bird, it represents a marked tendency in New Zealand’s avifauna towards melanism, abnormally dark plumage. The black fantail, the black weka of the Southern Sounds, and the rare, jet-black wood-robin of Mangare Island, one of the Chatham Group, are other examples. Even kiwis sometimes prefer dark costumes, instead of the ordinary reddish-brown.