JUNIOR SECTION*

Forest and Bird, Issue 148, 1 May 1963, Page 28

JUNIOR SECTION*

THE TUI

by the Wildlife Division, Department of Internal Affairs

Captain Cook, anchored at Dusky Sound in 1773, made the following entry about the tui in his log —“Under its throat hang two little tufts of snow-white feathers, called its poies, which being the Otaheitean word for earrings, occasioned our giving that name to the bird which is not more remarkable for the beauty of its plumage than the sweetness of its note. The flesh is also most delicious, and was of the greatest luxury the wood afforded us.” Cook’s praise of the tui’s plumage and song were well merited, and the Maoris agreed with him that it made good eating. It was highly prized by them as an article of food and despite strict protection it is still taken today in certain bush areas, although it is obviously no longer needed as food. With the clearing of much bush for farming and the consequent reduction in food supply, the number of the tuis decreased considerably over the first half century or so of white settlement. The tui remains scarce today in some parts, but generally speaking it is fairly common in forest areas and in many bush areas near settled districts throughout the country. Slightly longer than the introduced blackbird, with shining metallic bluish and greenish black plumage, the tui is distinctive because of the two dangling tufts of white curved feathers at its throat and the silver-grey filaments on its neck. From these it takes its nickname of the “parson bird”. But if this name seems to imply a solemn, dignified character in the tui, it is mistakenly bestowed, for although the tui is a gay, cheerful bird he is bold and courageous and one of the most pugnacious in the bush. GuthrieSmith, in his Birds of the Water, Wood and Waste, mentions that a tui was once observed chasing the much larger native pigeon. When the latter settled itself down on the branch of a tree, the tui, still not satisfied that the pigeon had removed itself as far as it might, sidled up the branch to give it a firm dig in the ribs. The tui has incurred the unpopularity of other birds for its aggressive habit of frequently chasing them.

* SPONSORED BY

J. r. McKenzie trust.

But sometimes the tables are turned, for there are cases on record where they have been attacked by companies of blackbirds and starlings and have been forced to either make an ignominious retreat or be killed. The tui is one of the finest songsters in the New Zealand bush, and one of the most frequently heard; for it sings as early in the morning and as late at night as the other bush birds. It has an extensive repertoire of musical notes intermingled with a variety of other gurgling, clucking, chiming, jangling, and wheezing sounds. Its exuberant outpouring of song ceases about sunset. From a distance some of its notes resemble the tolling of a bell. Its song is heard more during the breeding season,

from late September to early January, than at any other time. The hen bird even sings while sitting on the eggs a most unusual phenomenon in the bird world. The tui is a competent mimic it was popular among the Maoris as a pet and was taught to call greetings to visitors arriving at the pa. The tui’s flight is as distinctive as its song. It is rapid and noisy, and the rustle of its wings is clearly audible. The tui’s most characteristic haunts are among the outskirts of the bush and the tree tops, where the flowers and fruits which form its chief source of feed are found. Groups of tuis can sometimes be seen giving their version of a jetobatic display, flashing and darting in the air, then diving suddenly to disappear among the trees. Tuis find their main food supply in' the berries and nectar-bearing flowers of the forest. They feed on mahoe, coprosma, supplejack, maire, mako and karaka berries and the flowers of rata, kowhai, rewarewa, fuchsia, and flax. The tui’s tongue, which is tipped by a very fine brush, is especially adapted for extracting nectar from flowers. In winter, when the berries are past, insects form the mainstay of their diet. During the winter

months, in. their search for food,-tuis move about much more and are often seen in the gardens of more settled areas. The tui has adapted itself more readily than many other native species to the changing pattern of European settlement. Many settled areas now have well established gardens with various nectar-bearing shrubs such as rhododendrons, acacias and eucalypt. Occasional stragglers are seen searching for food in exotic pine forests. The tui with other birds plays an important role in the regeneration of our native bush. When it thrusts its beak into flowers for nectar, pollen settles on its head and it then carries the pollen from plant to plant. In addition it destroys various insects harmful to trees. The tui’s nest, which is usually built in a tree some ten to thirty feet above the ground, is a wide shallow structure of sticks, leaves and moss, insecurely attached to its site. The inside of the nest is lined with grass or leaves and perhaps one or two feathers. The eggs, which are very pointed and white in colour with a faint rosy tinge, are usually laid from October to December; there are three or four eggs in a clutch.

Nature Notes for Winter

Winter is almost upon us and many of the birds we have become familiar with during the summer have left our shores, notably the godwits and knots, who have set out on their long journey to Siberia and Alaska, while the shining and long-tailed cuckoos have left for the tropical islands such as the Solomons, and Tahiti and the banded dotterel has crossed the Tasman to Australia. However, not all the bird population goes away. The first-year godwits remain behind and some of the other species are still represented, but in very much- reduced numbers. While these birds are not so noticeable locally, migrants move north from the South Island or from inland localities to gather on our estuaries and seashores. You will notice the large number of South Island pied oyster-catchers, or if you are more fortunate and live near Auckland, you may see the flocks of wrybills on the Manukau Harbour or the Firth of Thames.

Storm Wrecks With the winter comes the rough weather, and many of the oceanic birds, such as the albatrosses and mollyhawks, find it difficult to obtain food at times. The result is that after heavy storms many perish and some are cast up on the beaches right around the country. If you take a walk -along the beach straight after a long stormy period, you may find interesting specimens; for instance, last year on Ohope Beach two rare petrels never before recorded in New Zealand were recovered and made wonderful museum specimens, and a wedgetailed shearwater from distant Hawaii was found at Makara (near Wellington). Many of these birds are difficult to identify, especially after they have been on the beach for some time, because often the hungry gulls will tear them about and eat parts of them: Identification of some may prove rather difficult, so it

does pay to send them to a museum to find out what they may be.

As you will remember from the last journal, mention was made of the scheme for banding red-billed gulls so that if any dead specimens of this species or any bird with a band is located you will contribute greatly to the success of the scheme and to science generally by removing the bands and forwarding them as instructed with details of where and when the birds were found.

As for the sea birds, so with the bush birds in the scarcity of food in the winter. The berries will be harder to find and later in the winter the pigeons will resort to eating leaves only. You can help the birds of your district by putting out various forms of food- —honey or sugar water for tuis, bellbirds, and silvereyes, and scraps of fat and suet and bread crumbs for the more common introduced birds.

By August you will have noticed that the birds are beginning to herald the approach of spring by singing, and you will hear bellbirds, thrushes, grey warblers, and a few others singing strongly as they mark out their claims for breeding purposes. Have you ever thought of keeping a record of when the various species of birds start to sing and how long they do so through the year? Such records could prove of great interest, especially if done over several years.

The Forest

In the parks and around the towns where many streets are lined with introduced trees such as oak, lime, plane, maple, etc., as autumn progresses everyone knows the leaves turn beautiful colours and then fall, leaving the trees looking bare and lifeless. However, the New Zealand native trees are almost all evergreen and stay covered throughout the year. There are exceptions, however, these being the houhere (the mountain ribbonwood), the kotukutuku (fuchsia), and the kowhai before it bursts into bloom and tells us that spring is here. Nothing of great interest is to be found in the bush during the worst of the winter months, and mud and rain make it a good place to stay away from. Long winter nights then will give opportunity to work out plans and schedules for what to look for and what to see when the weather becomes better and the bird calls invite you out to look for them.

JUNIOR ALONG THE TRACK

Nelson— Our home in Nelson is beside the Maitai River. Although we live near the town we are fortunate in having many native trees in our garden. Many birds live in our garden and I enjoy watching them. My favourite birds are the tuis. There is a big puriri tree just outside our kitchen. The tuis spend hours singing in the puriri tree and drinking the nectar from its flowers. Last winter I hung jars of sugar and water in the puriri tree. This kept the tuis here all winter. Unfortunately the tuis did not nest in our garden, though they visited us frequently to enjoy the kowhai trees. To my delight, this summer the garden has been alive with the song of tuis. All through March the tuis have been sucking puriri flowers. This tree has thousands of red berries and flowers at the same time. I watch them out of the windows. Several of the tuis have no white tuft. Mrs. Moncrieff told me that these are young tuis and they will have white tufts by next spring.— Barry Spear, 12 years.

Christchurch— We thought perhaps you would be interested in the unusual behaviour of three baby riflemen and their parents. We have watched riflemen at this time for many years from a cottage in the Craigieburns, but none have behaved quite like these. We had heard them twittering under the house for some time, and one Saturday morning while we were having breakfast on the veranda they flew out just beside us, and the young ones tried out their wings while we and their parents watched. They moved into and around a prickly shrub just near the veranda. We had quite a lot of visitors during the day. The weather was extremely hot, too hot for walking far; so we stayed in the shade just near the bush where the birds were; in fact, we were making quite a lot of noise. The three birds formed a nest in some leaves by lying with their heads together in a circle, under the bush, but quite in the open. By 6.30 p.m., when we were getting ready to have a meal at a table near this bush, Mum was getting a bit worried and wondering if we should move them to a safer place after dark. Then the parents, who had been around most of the time, stirred up the babies, and to our great amusement they had a game of chasing on the wing and on the ground, finally working their way up into a hawthorn bush, where they spent the night. There are a great number of trees around the cottage offering safety and privacy to baby birds; then why should they spend the day on the ground in the midst of a lot of noisy humans I—Alan and Hugh Best, 15 and 14 years.

Rotorua While holidaying at Ohiwa we saw fairy terns flying towards the entrance of the harbour but never saw one flying the other way. Each tern had nesting material. Then one day I went fishing at the entrance. It was then I found out that each tern which came down with nesting material would join in the others which were circling around and then land. On the last day of our holidays we again went down to the entrance. This time we saw about 300 to 400 birds on the mud flat and about, 20 birds diving for fish. We also saw mutton birds when out in the ocean out of the Whakatane Heads. — Wayne Miller, 10 years.

Dunedin While spending a holiday at Queenstown I had the time to study some black-billed gulls. I noticed that they were identical except for the colouring of their eyes. Some of these gulls had black eyes and some had white with a small red ring in the centre. To observe them I made a “hide” in the rocks and took a photograph of them, encouraging them with bread. After some time I realised that the birds with brown on their feathers (which' are immature birds) had the black eyes and as I was feeding a lame one off my hand I noticed that faintly in the middle of the black eye there was a dark ring. I came to the conclusion that when the young birds have black eyes and adult plumage, they are about two years old, and as they grow older their eyes become ringed. Stephen McElrea, 12 years.

[Your careful observation is of great interest. The young birds, as you say, have darker eyes and become lighter as the birds grow older, but the change over is between the end of the first year and the middle of the second, that is when the birds are about eighteen months old/Ed.]

Christchurch During the August holidays my mother, sister, and I were staying at our bach on the New Brighton sandspit when we noticed a lark, continually landing and taking off, on our property, not far from where we were sitting in our doorway. My mother said it must be feeding its young, so when it was away we quietly searched for its nest, time and time again. At last we found it, well hidden under a clump of grass. We had to lift up the overhanging grass to see in, and there, in what was almost a tunnel, were four baby larks, still in the down. We were most careful not to disturb them and left at once. When we looked a fortnight later they had gone. Mary Williams,, 13 years.

. New Plymouth.— have sent a list of birds I have observed round the New Plymouth district. In Pukekura Park there are tuis, ducks by the score, bellbirds, and wood pigeons, as well as mynahs, blackbirds, sparrows, thrushes, and other common birds. At the back of Paritutu Rock there are white-fronted terns, and black-backed and red-billed gulls, and I have found a blue penguin washed up at Hawaroa (New Plymouth). Out by Egmount Road there are pied stilts (eight or nine) and a few ducks on a small pond. Out towards the coast there are pukekos, quails, kingfishers, harriers, pheasants, goldfinches, banded dotterels, magpies, moreporks and waxeyes. —Tony Nielsen.

Buller Our house is two miles from Westport, at Carter’s Beach. It is a wonderful place for bird watching as we have a beach a quarter of a mile away, a swamp next to the house, some bush by the side of the farm, and a lake in our neighbour’s farm. I see a large number of birds : fantails, waxeyes, chaffinches, yellowhammers, thrushes, tuis, bellbirds, native pigeons, shining cuckoos, wekas, pukekos, wild ducks, moreporks, seagulls of all kinds, and all the more common birds such as starlings. I have seen one or two white herons in the bird sanctuary one mile from our place in a lagoon. Bitterns are often seen and are gradually increasing, but aren’t seen as much as the pukekos and their young. So I see many birds of different sorts when I go wandering through the bush with the farm dog. —Raymond Bruning, 14 years.

Rotorua visiting Te Mahoe I saw a native wood pigeon, the first one I ever saw. In the bush I saw tuis, fantails, and bellbirds. Going over we saw a white hawk. We wonder what type it was. — Wayne Miller, 10 years.

[Probably an old male (native) harrier hawk.]

Sumner— Sometimes a thrush comes on to our lawn. He is here today and Mummy and I watched it through the kitchen window. He puts his head down and cocks it on one side; then when he hears a worm under the grass he quickly put in his beak and pulls it out and swallows it. He does not always get a worm but he always tries again. He has just got a large bundle of worms in his beak and I think he must have some chicks somewhere. We have a lot of trees around the house and we get sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, thrushes, waxeyes, and sometimes bullfinches and goldfinches.— Jane Leelnirn, 10 years.

Christchurch One day we went over to Pigeon Bay to cut gorse. As I entered the bush there I caught a glimpse of' a few manuka still in flower. It was in the bush; the only sound was of the swishing of the stream, and bellbirds calling. The track I was following soon came to an end, and I had to force a way through the bush, slipping and sliding and grasping hold of; roots of trees to haul myself up to level ground. I was about to cross the creek when a continuous chirping broke out in some bushes near me. At first I thought it was made by crickets, but an investigation yielded a pair of riflemen searching for insects among the branches. After crossing the creek I startled a tui two or three feet away from me. Before it flew away I had a chance to study its greeny-blue plumage and the tuft of feathers on the throat. I was amazed at its size. The riflemen’s chirping was almost unending, and up in the treetops brown creepers were moving about in small flocks, stopping at intervals to feed their young. My attention was focused on a male rifleman who, with an insect in his bill, flew to a gorse bush. Reappearing a few seconds later, and flying back into the bush, he repeated this twice. I knew they had a nest there, but I did not intrude for fear of disturbing the birds. I think the rifleman doesn’t mind gorse thickets. As I walked up the cut-over gorse to join the rest of the party I. disturbed two Californian quail who ran chuckling into some manuka bushes. Later I saw a pigeon and a tui fly over. On previous trips, I have seen a shining cuckoo and a South Island tomtit; also down at the bay there are penguins and shags. Barry Ashworth.

Hutt— Around the Hutt Valley there are a number of birds, tuis, shining cuckoos, long-tailed cuckoos, fantails, wood pigeons, gulls, warblers, pukekos, bitterns, chaffinches, waxeyes, sparrows, blackbirds, and thrushes. Sometimes you can see grey ducks at the swamp. I have seen only one shining cuckoo and that was at a swamp at the river. At the swamp there are a lot of nests in the willows, and many frogs can be heard croaking in the summer. At night you can hear moreporks. Nigel Hooper, 10 years.

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