THE MOREPORK

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 21, 23 October 1944, Page 24

THE MOREPORK

By “Caffe” with Wood Engravings

by

To most New-Zealanders the call of the Morepork is more familiar than the sight of the somewhat retiring owl that utters it. There can be few' more nostalgic sounds than the sombre repetition of the low throaty cries so aptly vocalized in the name of the bird which begins its activities in the hour after sunset, recalling, perhaps, evening rides back to the homestead after a busy day working sheep, the approach to a hut in the bush after a ten hours’ tramp, or the glow of the dying camp-fire after the evening meal. In the early days of settlement two kinds of owl inhabited New r Zealand — the Morepork, then, as now, was abundant throughout the land, and the larger Laughing Owl was restricted to certain limestone areas of the South Island. The changes accompanying New Zealand's development proved too much for the Laughing Owl, which has not been definitely seen for many years. The introduction, in 1906, of the European Little Owl, frequently called the “ German Owl,” and its subsequent

establishment, chiefly in parts of the South Island, hardly compensates us for the loss of the Laughing Owl, though it restored the number of New Zealand owls to two. Throughout the Dominion the Morepork is found almost wherever there are trees, but probably it is nowhere as common as in the larger bush areas and, particularly, on the island sanctuaries off the New Zealand coast. The Morepork is well-known to many who have never seen its nest in a lifetime, yet so many inhabit the well-wooded Hen and Chickens Islets, off Whangarei, that a bird-watching expedition in 1940 found a dozen occupied nests in ten days. As the islands have a dense native bird population of over seven land birds per acre of forest (a high figure compared with the density on farmlands, for instance), there is no ground for any suggestion that the Morepork is an enemy of other bird-life. Predators, such as hawks and owls, have an important place in a healthy animal community. Actually, though small birds (white-eyes, bellbirds, parakeets, tomtits) are part of the diet, other items —mice, bush-rats, and insects—make up the bulk of the food. A bird which is active chiefly by night presents many obstacles to the would-be observer, so that much remains to be learned of the private life of the Morepork. In the early spring the answering calls of “ more pork ; more pork; more pork ” are alternated by husky crooning notes and screech-like cries of mating birds. A hollow', rotted limb of a forest tree, or some other dark cavity in a dim-lit glade in the bush, may be occupied for years on end by a nesting pair of More porks, and, later in the spring, the two or three almost round white eggs are layed within, on a soft bed of dry sawdust which serves much the same purpose in the owl’s domestic hygiene as the sawdust on a human butcher’s floor. The new-hatched

chick is uncouth and blind, with a covering of white, fluffy down, later giving way to grey. The young leave the nest some fine moonlit summer’s evening and follow their parents from tree to tree, begging food with insistent chattering cries which are kept up till the dawn.

By day Moreporks tend to remain in hiding, for their appearance is greeted by recognition by the diurnal birds of the bush. A tui, perhaps, will first see the huddled shape, and will raise such a commotion that in five minutes all the birds of the forest are mobbing the unfortunate owl, approaching within a yard and performing all the varied threatening gestures

and cries at their command. The mobbing of a Morepork is the occasion for the most active social gathering among bush birds, for tui, bellbird, robin, tit, warbler, fantail, wren, and finch will congregate

in recognition, possibly, of a known enemy, and, certainly, of a creature foreign to their way of life. The Morepork occurs in Australia, where it is known as the Boobook Owl, and is also found on many of the East Indian islands. This wide distribution suggests that the bird is one of the many which have colonized New Zealand in comparatively late prehistoric times from Australia, and is not one of the aristocrats of the bird world which are old residents of distinction. Such “ old established families ” include the Huia, the Kiwi, and the Laughing Owl, and have generally proved less adaptable than later colonists. Unfortunately, the

nineteenth centurychanges undergone by New Zealand tended to weed out the unique ” old families,” and to leave in undisputed possession such relatively new arrivals as the Morepork, the Pukeko, and the Fantail.