Along the Track

Forest and Bird, Issue 104, 1 May 1952, Page 11

Along the Track

TARANAKI. Some time ago as I passed through my small orchard, with rain falling, I noticed a thrush sitting on its nest in an apple tree; its wings were spread out and reaching over the sides of the nest. I approached a little closer and it flew off, and to my astonishment there was another thrush underneath; so to get to the bottom of the matter I went a little closer, when it, too, flew off, and there in the nest were four little ones newly hatched. No doubt father was shielding mother from the rain, who in turn was protecting the little ones. H. C. Belcher.

WELLINGTON.—GREY WARBLERS. I enjoyed reading the article in your August issue on the charming little riroriro. While these birds are not quite as tame and trustful as the fantail, they can be induced sometimes to come close to humans. I recently coaxed one to where I was standing in a small patch of native bush by whistling softly. In fact, I could almost have touched him— I moved, when he immediately flew away; only to return again when I resumed whistling, but not so near as before. — W. R. von Keisenberg.

ENGLAND.—THE CHANGING TIMES. Here in England, there are many signs that the public attitude to birds is undergoing a profound change for the better. In recent years a British film company found it worthwhile to make a full-length film in which the hero, heroine, and entire plot revolved around the protection of a single rare bird, the Tawny Pipit. Books on bird-watching, and on how to photograph birdlife, are now a familiar sight in the bookshops, and many city councils have given orders that the trees throughout their parks and squares should be given bird houses. Such consideration leads one to believe that the love which the English have for their birds is now deep and widespread. The head man of the Sports Department of a large store recently remarked that he did not know a single collector (meaning a man who shoots birds to have them stuffed and mounted) under the age of sixty.— R. B. Godward.

COROMANDEL.—Just as a party of us were packing up after a picnic at a title spring in unfrequented scrub country on the Coromandel Peninsula, we were surprised to hear a single repeated note coming from a low dense

bush about ten feet away. At first we thought it must be some sort of cricket, but the type of locality and the monotonous note caused me to suspect a fern bird, although I had never previously seen or heard one. On our cautious approach a small bird with a speckled breast appeared at the top of the bush, only showing its head and breast, and sat there for a minute or two, obviously talking to us with a continually repeated double —the “U-tick,” on which its early name of U-tick was based though, being unfamiliar with the fern bird, I still could not positively identify it until I had seen its tail. When it fluttered through the scrub to a line of manuka bushes with a gap at the end I sent one of the party around to the other side and we proceeded to work it along towards the gap. The bird seemed to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the game, repeatedly coming out to the edge of the bushes on our side and “talking” to us, this time answering our single whistles with a single note, so that between us we produced a chorus of “U-ticks”, but always it exasperatingly kept its head and breast towards us and its tail hidden in the shadows beyond. Eventually we manoeuvred it to the end of the bushes and it flew across the gap, at last exposing its long feathery tail and leaving me in no doubt as to its identity. It soon re-crossed the gap and continued to “talk” to us until we left and climbed up the bank on our way home. Looking back I saw it fly up as if to follow us and go into a bush just below us, but though I whistled to it, this time it stayed quiet and would not disclose its position, and there we left it.

The unmistakable fact that it “talked” to us, coming quite close to do so, coupled with the fact that it did not disclose its presence until we were in the act of departure and later flew up closer to us as we left, makes me as sure as I can be that it had no fear of us and actually enjoyed our presence. —R. H. Carter.

A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.