Bird Nesting

Te Ao Hou, March 1974, Page 28

Bird Nesting by Arthur Couch A sparrow's nest! A blackbird's nest! What memories they rekindle! Although I disturbed mother blackbird and exposed her nest when cutting my hedge, I will not touch her eggs. The sparrow's nest is built high in the macrocarpa tree overhanging my gate, but still in its customary spot now beyond my ability to climb and rob. The nest has been built on that branch for many years. And yet it is not the old one, for I see new grass, and is that not the piece of binder twine I had left by my chair two days ago, intended for my tomatoes, now used so cunningly to help bind that nest? These remind me of my very early youth when, as school children in our native village of Rapaki, we boys would rush off straight from school in search of birds' eggs. The heads of young ones, too, were collected, but only if we had decided to sell our collection of eggs within the next day or so. Mr Carpenter, the County Clerk for Mt Herbert County Council, lived in Governors Bay, and it was to him that we took the eggs. We received the princely sum of three-pence per dozen for sparrow, thrush, black-bird and finch eggs. Same for sparrows' heads. We could never understand why starlings' eggs were not acceptable. Mind you, we did try to ‘put it across’ by adding ink spots to the thick end of the eggs. The starlings' eggs were a much lighter blue and Mr Carpenter's sharp eyes seldom allowed these to pass when checking. How persistent these birds can be during nesting, and what a quantity of straw they carry! Even as I sit resting from my hedge cutting, one is trying to raise a tile, working from the roof guttering. Oh no, Mrs Starling, I know you too well! Our main hunting trees were in Cass Bay, but to get to them we passed through the Abattoir paddock in which grazed cattle for the Lyttelton butchers. The long-horned steers did not look too friendly but if we could see them at the other end of the paddock, through the fence and down the hill we would go, selecting our first tree as we drew near. It was great fun to climb to the very top where there was usually a sparrow's nest to be robbed. The swaying of ‘the tree, too, was lovely. The danger of falling never entered our minds. From this position, other trees were surveyed, also lower branches. The eggs were carried in the mouth. From a good tree the tally carried in this way could be quite astonishing. My ‘grown-up’ family greet me with “Oh, Dad” when I tell them my record from one tree was twenty-two eggs. One does not have to keep one's teeth together. Just have the jaw relaxed with tongue flat on the bottom of the mouth. You trained singers will know what I mean. One's lips, of course, remained closed. Before setting off for home, we would blow the eggs out. By this I mean puncture a hole at each end and blow the yolk, etc., out. Bluegum trees grew in the village and these afforded the sparrows safe nesting. We were able to climb some, but with their smooth trunks and branches widely spaced, the feathered inhabitants enjoyed almost complete immunity from us. Thrush, blackbird and finches made their nests in trees and hedges which gave them hardly any protection from us marauding school boys. Even gorse thickets were no deterrent when one remembers every bird's egg collected meant a new suit slowly raising itself above the horizon, or more money to buy fireworks to usher in the New Year. Eighty dozen eggs meant ‘One Pound’ and in those days a boy's suit could be purchased from Armstrongs in Christchurch for between two and three pounds. What havoc we must have created in the bird population

in those days. I had a new suit several successive years through this means, and we were quite happy to earn our money in this way. Recally, there was no other means in Rapaki. I always had an advantage over other boys where protection against scratches and thorns were concerned as I was made to wear knickerbockers or long pants. Remember how knickerbockers were done up by a buckle just below the knees and the long stockings just covered the buckle? I do not remember any of us falling from a tree or badly tearing our clothing while birdnesting. The instinct to test first before trusting our weight on a branch came naturally. My mother would allow me to spend part of the Christmas holidays with an aunt and uncle in Temuka. Money was in short supply, but my friend Kahu and I surmounted this problem by going after birds' eggs. We travelled quite a distance to get them, but determination had its reward. Four dozen eggs each meant we could go to the pictures on Saturday; another dozen, an ice cream during the interval, and still that extra dozen, another ice cream for the young lady we hoped to walk home. And so that was birdnesting. Let us return to today. That sparrow's nest built so high up and on that swaying branch is now perfectly safe. But you, Mrs Blackbird, should not be considered, for I have watched you fighting with the net I had thrown over my raspberry bush, even released you several times from its meshes when in your determination to steal my raspberries, you have gone down to ground level to get at the fruit of your choice. Should I blame you for uprooting two short rows of French beans? Maybe it was a Magpie. I do know you tipped over a pot in which I had planted a prized chrysanthemum simply because you could hear a worm busily working around its roots. I must forgive you for when I sit and listen to your husband perched high on a tree singing his short song and this being taken up by others of his kind all around me, I relent. His way of telling all those who cared to listed how wonderful it is to live and sing. So continue to nest and sing in the trees your Creator has provided for you. Mother Nature will do what I used to, but please, have pity on my garden.