A Log Home.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20485, 11 December 1934, Page 6

A Log Home.

Nature Notes

By

James Drummond, F.L.S.. F.Z.S.

PAIR OF KINGFISHERS made their

home in a large kauri log three yards from the door of Mrs G. Taylor’s house, Glen Eden, near Auckland. A tunnel they made in the wood was so long and dark that an observer had to peer in for several minutes before the sitting bird was seen.

Both male and female defended their home valiantly. Usually they did not tolerate any intrusion. The presence of strangers in the neighbourhood was resented. The female met a person two hundred yards off and attacked repeatedly. A stray dog was driven away with tail down. The bayonet-bills, thrust with deadly aim and precision, terrorised other birds that came near. With Mrs Taylor the kingfishers were tame. They accepted grubs and earthworms she offered, and did not protest against her handliitg their eggs. An early New Zealand naturalist watched • a pair of kingfishers that began to make their home in the plastered sod chimney of an empty cottage. They abandoned that site and tried the wall of the cottage no fewer than six times before they were satisfied; and the site finally selected was in the chimney close to the first site. Five white eggs were laid and. in time, the family was increased by five noisy and greedy young kingfishers.