Along the Track

Forest and Bird, Issue 110, 1 November 1953, Page 8

Along the Track

BULLS. — A friend living about 20 miles distant as the crow flies, described to me a small bird he and his wife had seen a few days before hopping about in an apple tree in his garden, quite close to a window so they had a good view of it, “greenish back and bars across the breast”; this sounded like a shining cuckoo.

Showing them in Buller’s 2nd Edition his plate of the cuckoo, they at once said, “That is it all right”.

Being called outside to another room with a large window open at the bottom, when about 8 yards from the window a bird flew over my head and went full tilt into the top part of the window and fell on its back in front of me. Picking it up I saw it was a shining cuckoo, the first I had ever seen closer than the very top of a high tree. The bird was stunned. I took it back and showed it to my friend and his wife who both said at once “Wherever did you get that, that is the bird”. In a few minutes the bird recovered and flew away quite all right.

Now that happened on July 19th, very early indeed for these little chaps to be seen, and I have not seen any sign of them since, neither has my friend. Now was it the same bird, arrived early in New Zealand looking for a mate?

But it is an extraordinary happening, that within 10 minutes of my friend arriving here and telling me about the bird, that the same bird should, of all unlikely things too, fly into a window and stun itself, or was it another bird? It will be interesting to know if others have seen any of them. — K. W. Dalrymple.

(It is still not known whether cuckoos seen two months ahead of the normal arrival date have remained behind at the autumn migration or are an unusually early arrival. The presence of two recorded in proximity on an unusual date does suggest that a little group had arrived early, possibly under stress of abnormal weather.—Ed.}

OAMARU.— The reproduction of Miss Daff’s painting of the bittern on the cover of a recent number is the incentive which prompts me to write to you. Years ago I

saw a bittern among the raupos growing on the banks of the Styx river in Canterbury, an unforgettable experience. In Miss Daff’s rendering, the tone values differ greatly from those noted in my one and only view of this bird. Had I not been an artist, I probably would not have become aware of its presence, so completely did it merge into its surroundings.— Mrs. H. J. Edgar. (Our correspondent’s observation is interesting and accords with Buller’s note on these birds that a considerable amount of individual variation exists not only in size but in details of their colouring. This would account for the difference between her observation and Miss Daff’s rendering. In the painting attention is necessarily focused on the details of the bird, though in nature it merges into its surroundings.—Ed.) BLENHEIM—In Defence of the Shag.— Recently the writer witnessed an attempt to kill two shags which were partly submerged on a tidal estuary, and the incident typifies the harm being done to the whole class of shags. In the writer’s opinion this is due to having one species open for indiscriminate killing, while other species are protected. In the case described, one was a black shag, and the other spotted. Only the heads appeared above water and the shooter fired five shots from a pea rifle before being informed that he was shooting in a prohibited area apart from the fact that one bird was protected. Unless any marksman can immediately recognise the species the protection is a misnomer. The black shag appears to be more wary than the others and this attribute may account for its survival. Many shags are killed because they happen to be shags —for monetary gain or merely the lust of seeing defenceless and harmless birds in the agony of their demise. In the incident quoted here, the shooter fortunately “missed” all five shots, and on being questioned on the reason for shooting the birds, gave the all-too-common answer —“Why! They’re only shags”. Some time earlier, in the same place and similar circumstances, a spotted shag was killed. The bird had been an

object of interest, amusement and education to a small group who had befriended it for several years, and to whom the legal protection was paramount. A small lad wept as others have done over a pet dog. This particular bird was the sixth spotted shag known to have been killed in the same locality within six months. Only a few isolated birds remain. Black shags are

much more common, but the spotted shag is paying the price of the legal killing granted to the larger group. The price is too high and will continue until full protection is granted to the whole family of shags. The losses occurring among the rare and smaller groups, are much more serious than the whole of the damage (if any) done by the black shags.—

H. Murray.