RARE VISITOR

Hokitika Guardian, 7 March 1933, Page 6

RARE VISITOR

- •■< /:• j t tD-vy, *,*■/. *• . {•[\P \ ... . - THE AVRY-BILLED PLOVER-, NEW PLYMOUTH.; Afar c h 4. A rare New Zealand - bird was picked up .in the centre....of th j e,.;N.ew Plymouth business area, early . this ' mpriping. It had a damaged ./(m g and wa® easily secured. After Kging identified r®, a oW-yrhillod plover,..it was laterreleased at the mouth of the Waiwakaiho River.

The bird was about five long, with silvery-grey,..plumage, - .long bljp.k. legs with parti ally.rWe'bl'-edE.f.ee.t, .n,»d- aslender black, right abput ho If Rifely S'bstiveen the headand the. extreti|^''of‘''t'Ke' beak." It was identified by? Mr W. W. Smith, a well-known naturalist, as. a young wry'billed plover. (Sir Smith paid he had eeen one of ( these birds on only one other occasion(at the mouth of the Rakaia River, (inf the South Island. It was one. -of NewjZeala-ntVs most beautiful and now>v--Yunfortuinately, rarest birds. ;

The wry-billed plover was formerly .fairly common' on-the slrnglv banks ot the snow rivers -of the South Island, and was -found as far north at WAnganui. Tt was known to; Maoris at Mgutup-'re. The adult- is a -Large land conspicuous fijird, ranging up to eight, inches in length, bill and. tail. While .ft is a Hand bird, it is semi-aquatic in its iljnbite. ( -TOipv’mg round among stones and oopls-jof the riv«r h~nk. The young soebimsnicku'rht at New -.Plymouth to-day J 'was of light grev colour, but •in the -adfi-'t bii'-L-tlEs deenens to pa dark grev and; a velvet black hand form* on the breast. 'The wry-billed plover is a rapid runnel’: