Along the Track

Forest and Bird, Issue 125, 1 August 1957, Page 14

Along the Track

DUNEDIN: Recently we spent an hour or so watching two white herons feeding beside a main road. A large volume of Sunday afternoon traffic was passing and it was surprising how many of those cars stopped and watched the birds. The general public was definitely interested. Close by, at one period, were some young schoolboys, one of whom was heard to say, “If we could kill it, we could take it to the Museum.” How necessary it is for us to educate the children to protect, not to kill our native birds.— E. L. Walker. TITIRANGI: Since Auckland’s northern motorway was opened at the end of 1955 a hitherto little-known lagoon now crossed by the causeway has become accessible to those interested in wading birds. Pied stilts, pied

shags and Caspian tern come there regularly and last February a member of this Society saw a large flock of godwits, estimated at about 4,000, which had made a brief halt on their migration. Now we have white herons. Unfortunately pedestrians are not allowed to use the motorway and cars may not stop on it but on the 17th May I had a distant glimpse of four of these beautiful birds. — Miss K. M. P. Gillespie. DANNEVIRKE: A recent brief visit to Whitianga, Coromandel, gave my family and myself our first glimpse of the black oyster catchers, banded dottrels, the blue or. reef heron and the Caspian tern. It was a pleasure to see all these birds for the first time and we identified them with the aid of various handbooks.—J. A.