IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 August 1922, Page 4

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

PETRELS AT A LIGHTHOUSE. (By ,1. Drummond. F.L.S. F.Z.S. in ‘.‘Lyttelton Times.”) “The. night of December 6, 1921, and the early morning of December 7 at P.uyseguer Point lighthouse, Preservation fillet, was thick, with misty rip'll jyidfog,” writes Mr R. Stuart Su%riiy,id. “When I reached the lighthouse at .midnight— my natch was from mid-night to daylight.—very few birds were about, although their shrill cries were heard as they flew a-rqmid below, and an occasional, crash against the window told of the thickening and dosing in of the fog. About l a.m. following' five or six loud crashes. I went out on the balcony to sec what was doing. Where the long thin shafts of light were broken by the eddying clouds of mist, some sixty yards from the tower flocks of petrels wore wheeling swiftly. A bird suddenly, with a- piercing cry, turned partially aside arid flew towards the windows. It could be seen clearly as it twiic nearer, struggling despoiatelj, but in rain. to alter its cciuse. Crashing inside the iron framework of n window, it was killed instantly. As it dropped on to the balcony, 1 picked it up, to discover that it was a mottled petrel, a somewhat rare species at Puyscgur Point. I obtained on-! ly five individuals of it in three years.

‘‘Climbing the ladder to tlic coping around the Intern itself. I saw seven grey-backed storm petrels. Only one of them, which had a. broken wing, was injured. The birds now were crashing in rapidly. Broadbilled dove-petrels were by far the most plentiful. Niue of them struck the panes in less than half, that number of minutes. Two of the nine were killed outright, and three were injured badly. Very few birds that strike the panes are injured about the head. The injuries mostly are broken wings, broken legs, hndlv smashed bodies, or mgeh more rarely broken necks. Sitting in the tower, a watcher can identify by the sound of the crash the species to which the unlucky bird belongs. 1 have no record of the panes being broken. 'lTis is somewhat surprising in view of the great force with which a mutton-bird strikes. 1 have been told that at the Afoeraki Lighthouse." panes have been smashed hy" black swans. In addition to many petrels of several species, a few land birds are seen around the light at Puyscgur Point, but, apparently, it is out of the line of migratory streams

as their appearances there are very erratic.

“The lighthouse is ISO feet above hjigh-water. the light, a revolving one, shows only outward over the sea. that is to say the panes are darkened on the landward side. The blind panes which cover about ono-third of the window area of the lantern, suddenly cut off the light that dazzles a bird coming towards the tower along the beams. In that wav they save many birds from an unfortunate end. because. as the beam cm which the bird is travelling is cut, the fiird usually has time to turn aside*, or, at the worst, strikes the tower at an angle and is injured only slightly. Bewildered birds that encircle the lighthouse usually follow the revolutions of the light. Sometimes when the mist closes in during the early part of the night, within about two hours of sunset, petrels are seen flying towards the tower from the south or the south we,st from the direction of Windsor Point and the Solnuder Islands. It is hard to find an explanation of the light’s attraction to the birds. It is evident that they are powerless to resist it. Everybody has seen moths Hying into candles, barge Hocks of seabirds wheeling around a lighthouse ill

the lonely watches of the night is a sight few people have seen.” ! A strange feature of the appearance of mutton-birds near the lighthouse is that oil one night all, the individuals killed against'the panes are males, and on another night ail are females. They make their burrows, lay their eggs and rear their young oil Crayfish Island, close to- the lighthouse, and Air ‘Stuart Sutherland suggests that the sexes take turn about in finding food ; for the young. Females with partly developed eggs have been killed at the lighthouse ea.rlv in December. Mottled petrels, which also breed in the district, seem to have the same division of the sexes, all individuals killed on one night being the same sex. The godwit ,or kualca, which migrates between New Zealand and Siberia,# is uncommon at the lighthouse. About a dozen were seen in three years; only one was killed. The pretty little white eyes, whose migrations have attracted much attention on land this winter, sometimes sit on the grating and the handrail around the lantern. They are seen usually in the early morning, about, an hour before daylight. Only a. few of them are killed. Fairy dove-petrels are plentiful. hut not so as broad-billed dove-petrels, which are in evidence every month of the year, sometimes in hundreds.