WHITE HERONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 258, 1 November 1932, Page 11

WHITE HERONS

THE RARE KOTUKU Marton is not the only district where the white heron has been seen during the last few days. Last Friday, visitors to Naumai Park, Hawera, were fortunate in seeing a specimen of the Kotuku, or white heron, one of New Zealand's very rare birds, perched on top of one of the Maori houses in the grounds of the park. It allowed observers to approach it closely and would then make short flights to the other house across the lake. It is a beautiful snowy white bird, over three feet high, with yellow bill and black legs. Describing the Kotuku in * 4 Animals of New Zealand,” edited by Captain F. W. Hutton and Mr James Drummond, these well-known naturalists state that according to a Maori proverb the white heron has been a very rare bird in New Zealand for a long time. This may have been the case in the North Island, but certainly not in the Sonth. When the first settlers came to the South Island the bird was not uncommon on the margins of lakes and rivers. Lake Heron, in the Ashburton county, was named by Mr Potts, in 1857, on account of the number of these birds which frequented its shores. But the white heron is now very rare in New Zealand. There is a white heronry at Okarito, Westland. The birds are occasionally seen in the Okarito district. They feed principally on fish. When flying the head is kept far back, the tip of the bilf being behind the forward curve of the neck and the legs are stretched out straight behind. The Maori placed a high value on the plumes of the white heron.

Writing of the appearance of a white heron in Mercury Bay, in the far North some time back a writer in the Auckland Star mentioned that years ago, before the great marshes and ferns were drained, the Kotuku was numerous in some of our remotest districts. The Ngaere swamp near Eltham in inland Taranaki, was a place where it abounded. An old runaway soldier who lived with the Maoris of the Ngati-Ruanui tribe told the writer that he and his Hauhau companions made annual expeditions to the Ngaere in the ’sixties for eels and birds and that they caught many white herons in snares near the lagoon edge. This name, Te Kotuku-Whakaoka, means 44 The Darting Heron or The Stabbing Heron.” The white heron is protected and a severe penalty awaits anyone who destroys one of the birds,