Birds in a Garden.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 6

Birds in a Garden .

Nature Notes

By

James Drummond,

F.L.S., F.Z.S.

QNE of the most familiar species of birds in Mr F. Eyre’s garden. Parapara River, Collingwood, is the yellow-breasted tomtit. He has to stand for onlv about a minute with hoe and spade to see a tomtit alight on a twig hard by. and to listen to its “ peep-peep ’’ until the ground is broken. Tomtits will not touch an earthworm, but a white grub will tempt them under the moving spade. Tuis and bellbirds are plentiful and feed within arm’s reach. Bellbirds are ouarrelsome. They hunt smaller birds until they are exhausted, apparently only for sport. Wood-robins do not visit the garden, although in former years they swarmed in that part. To find them plentiful it is necessary to go back into rougher country. No mining camp on the field, Mr Eyre reports, is without its friendly pipit, or ground-lark. Only one is attached to each camp. Mr Eyre’s is one-legged, devoid of anv signs of ever having had two legs. He watched a pied fantail descend on a bluebottle and take it in its claws. The fantail, using its claws, fastened the bluebottle to a twig and dismembered it. This incident is accepted by Mr Eyre as evidence that midges and sandflies are not fan tails’ only food Every night a pair of kiwis come to feed at a creek near the hut, taking earthworms and grubs let loose by the day’s sluicing.