JUNIOR SECTION*

Forest and Bird, Issue 158, 1 November 1965, Page 21

JUNIOR SECTION*

The Fantail Is a Fascinating Little Bird

By the WILDLIFE BRANCH, Department of Internal Affairs

The fantail or piwakawaka was well known to the old-time Maori, who often referred to a restless person as a “flitting fantail”. A Maori saying about this bird is that a person with evil habits is like a fantailnervous, restless, and uneasy. The first fantail seen by Europeans was a black one and was discovered during Cook’s second voyage to New Zealand. Other specimens were secured and taken back to Europe by Dieffenbach and the French expedition under d’Urville about 1840. Three species of fantails are found in New Zealand — South Island pied fantail, the North Island pied fantail, and the black fantail. The South Island pied fantail is a dark olive brown on the wings, with a sooty black forehead and brownish black tail feathers with white shafts and tips. The

underneath of the tail is almost clear white; the bill is black and the feet blackish brown. The North Island pied fantail is slightly paler. More distinctive than the pied fantails is the black variety found in the North and South Islands. Its general plumage is sooty black, with a rusty tinge on the back. This variety has a distinctive white ear spot. Favourite Hunting Ground The fantail gathers where insects are plentiful, one of its favourite hunting grounds being over small bush streams where in summer insect life is abundant. In winter these birds are often seen in large numbers fluttering after flies through the clouds of steam rising from the thermal lakes at Rotorua. Fearless and friendly, fantails will often follow a traveller through the bush, giving an amazing exhibition of aerial gymnastics in pursuit of flies disturbed from the undergrowth by his movements. They will often alight on one’s hat,

shoulders, or rifle between numerous short forays after flying insects. Though fantails are primarily bush dwellers, during late autumn and winter they sometimes frequent the more settled areas. They will often venture right into towns, and it is not uncommon for one to enter a house by an open door or window, returning morning after morning to hunt flies. They will even flit in and out of shops, quite oblivious to the hustle and bustle of the town life round them. Unfortunately, the winter is not kind to these attractive and interesting little birds, and during severe weather many which forsake their bush habitat die of exposure. Fantails usually select small trees or shrubs close to the forest edge or in plantations or gardens for their nesting sites. They often build adjacent to or over water, skimming across the water in the early mornings to catch insects on the wing. Nesting Season The nesting season lasts ' from August to January, during which two to three broods may be raised. In a clutch there are usually three to four eggs, broadly ovoid and white with small light brown blotches more numerous at the larger end. Both sexes build and both do their share in the incubation process, which takes about 15 days. The young birds leave the nest when they are about 15 days old.

The nest cup is securely woven on to the top of some naked bough or it may be built in the fork of a tree snugly lined with the soft fluff of raupo heads. Other materials used are hair, wool, or soft particles of grass. The exterior is camouflaged to match the surroundings, with mosses, pieces of decaying wood and lichens, which sometimes form a long trailing tail. These are neatly smoothed off and bound with spider web, which keeps the nest trim and taut and acts as a sort of hair-net. The young are fed on a large variety of small insects and caterpillars and moths. The fantail is seldom still and even when poised on a branch or twig in readiness for its next aerial sweep to collect insects it moves its head from side to side in accompaniment of its pleasant twittering note. It emits this same note while on the wing, its erratic flight with fan-shaped tail being a very distinguishing feature. "The note,” observes Anderson, “passes from a sustained tweeting, or chatting, through a double warble, to a cheery whistled song of fair compass and considerable variation.” This fascinating little bird has many good qualities, for being completely insectivorous it lives on many insects and grubs which are considered pests. It is particularly beneficial to forests and mankind and for this reason deserves the utmost respect and protection.

ALONG THE TRACK

(Three shillings will be paid for each item published in "Along the Track". Please give your age when you write.) Christchurch — When I am coming home from school along Linwood Avenue I often see some pukekos. There are not many in winter, but in spring and summer they are plentiful and we see many parents with their chicks. The fields round here are swampy and there is a canal running beside the road. The birds hide in the reeds and grasses. In the Avon-Heathcote estuary there are many birds. Pied stilts and oystercatchers are plentiful and of course there are many gulls. In Sumner you can see shags at Shag Rock, which is near the estuary. In winter numbers of wax-eyes come round, and we put out food for some goldfinches. Once I saw a small blue penguin on the rocks at the beach, and there used to be a family of them under a house near there.

Many godwits wade in the mud of the estuary in summer and eat small fish and shellfish. In winter they go away with the pied stilts. The common birds in Sumner are house sparrows, starlings, thrushes, fantails, and blackbirds. Several kingfishers perch on the power lines near the beach and sometimes we get them near our place. Pigeons make their nests in the crags and holes in the cliff faces round the hills. They are very timid and will not let you come near them. —Jane Leeburn, 13 years Brighton— White-faced herons are fairly common here and most of them are found around the Akatore Creek. A pair of herons live on the rocks just below our farm, which runs right down to the sea. One of these herons has been there for about four years and it was joined by the other one about two years ago. We have never found where they nest, but they spend a lot of time up in the macrocarpa trees around the house. One morning my mother saw six white-faced herons up there at once.

Coming home from Oamaru one weekend we detoured out to Karitane, where we saw a pair of white herons in a lagoon. One was very near the road, but unfortunately we did not have a camera. This was only the second time I had seen white herons, and I was very pleased. I only hope that no one tries to disturb or harm them in any way. —Joan Merrilees, 14 years Paeroa Outside our house we have a fowl run, to which the main visitors are sparrows and mynas. We have a big maple tree on which sparrows perch. Mynas start to build their nests in our letterbox, but my mother always pulls the straw out. Almost every day on my way home from school I see a kingfisher in his shiny blue and green coat, perched on the power lines. He never seems to sit on the telephone wires. What keeps a bird from getting electrocuted while he is sitting on the power lines ? —Anthony Clarke, 11 years An animal is usually electrocuted on a power line if it comes in contact with another conductor or is connected with the ground while it is on the line. A bird as a rule sits on only one power line and does not make the necessary contact with any other point at the same time. Ed. Auckland tui has a very light blue egg, which it lays in a nest of sticks, horsehair, wool, and grass roots. It has a black coat and several white feathers on top of its wings and under its neck. The tui is a very good songster and mimic and when it sings its throat goes in and out. The tui eats berries, nectar, and insects. Seagulls eat fish and scraps and bread. You find them mainly near beaches. Their feathers are white and grey. When the tide is out you sometimes find them on rocks in flocks looking for scraps. —John Edwards, 7 years Pirinoa— January my sister and I went to Kapiti Island, where we had a most enjoyable day. We arrived in the morning and the first bird we saw was a weka strutting round a pohutukawa tree near the boatshed. Later we climbed Kapiti’s highest hill, 1,709 ft high, and looked down on to Kapiti. I saw parrakeets, pigeons, kakas, warblers, silvereyes, shining cuckoos, bellbirds, wekas, fantails, and hawks. Peter Davey, 12 years Silverdale l have observed tuis, little blue penguins, petrels, gannets, harrier hawks, pukekos, wood pigeons, fantails, moreporks, and parrakeets. My three most important observations are : the New Zealand bush falcon, which I observed recently; some cuckoos; and bellbirds in a tree. I have read that the falcon and the bellbirds are rare in our area. Is this true? David Philpott, 14 years Yes. These birds are rare in your district. In other parts of the country they are still quite numerous. Ed.

Oamaru— Last May we had big winds and snow. After they were over I went to look at our native trees at school. In them were six or seven pied fantails. I stood still and a pied fantail flew down until he was about 2ft away. They must have been driven down from the bush on the mountains by the wind and snow. Their nests are about the size of the palm of a hand. Their tails are white, with two black feathers in the middle. There is a North Island fantail and a South Island fantail. Murray McMillan, 10 years Dunedin— ln the first week of the school holidays I stayed with a friend at Waikouaiti. I spent some time watching all the ducks, swans, and geese. One day I saw a bittern and two partridges. Watching all these birds was very interesting. —P. Coxhead, 13 years Putaruru June Neil Lynn found a bird in a camellia tree at the Lichfield School. Mrs M. Cox told the pupils that it was a young long-tailed cuckoo. The bird was very shy, because whenever the pupils made a noise it flew away. This longtailed cuckoo was the first seen round the school. —Standard 111, Lichfield School Dannevirke — One day when I was at the back of the farm I noticed many young native trees coming up in the gullies and round many small streams. The bush round our waterfalls had got damaged by floods and stock. This year it was quite surprising to see many different kinds of native trees, especially the black tree fern (mamaku), suddenly sprout out of the ground. Down one part of a small stream the trees and ferns are now quite large since the area has been fenced off from stock. In summer, when one walks through these patches of bush, many birds fly about. The tui is the most prominent bird, but there are also many others. Last year I noticed two large pigeons eating berries on a tree. The totaras are the main native trees round our area, though many of them were cut down or burnt in the early days. Now numbers of young totaras are growing quite quickly. Max Chatfield, 14 years Wainuiomata— have just shifted to Wainuiomata, where on our If acres of land there is mostly native bush. Among the birds here are the morepork and the fantail. At night it is quite fascinating to hear the morepork calling and the locusts and cicadas buzzing and making a din. Jennifer Futter, 12 years Auckland When we were staying at Leigh I saw three native wood pigeons or kereru. They just sat there, not moving. The wood pigeon is one of New Zealand’s most beautiful birds. Its head is a beautiful golden green with copper reflections and its legs are pink; the claws are black. Wood pigeons are fat birds and eat berries; when there are no berries they eat green shoots. They play an important part in spreading forest seeds. The pigeon builds an untidy nest, laying one egg. — Graeme Edwards.

* Sponsored by the J. R. McKenzie Trust.