NOCTURNAL TRAGEDIES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4839, 10 June 1925, Page 3

NOCTURNAL TRAGEDIES.

■WAKN BIBDS SLEEP. our smaller Birds have a precarious existence. In ‘he houns of daylight they have many enemies to contend with, and it is not always easy to elude them, hut at night, when they . are cosily hidden away in the ever.greens, they arc still in gloat danger. When the birds of the day have retired, and all nature seems to be asleep, there is another army of wild eieatures awaking, and most of these are larger birds or mammals which prey upon their companions. A few weeks ago (writes H. Oliver G. Pike, in the "Daily Mail’’) I was standing under a maiss of thick ivy, and I saw a form hovering silentiy before it. The next moment it plunged into the leaves, and a loud scream rang out, a cry that one would have thought it ' ‘ impossible for a bird to utter. But 1 knew that the white owl had fixed his sharp talons into a sleeping sparrow, and it was the terror of being attacked in this way that that caused the smaller bird to give out such a strange and human note. The greatest tragedy that I knew to take place at night was at a ravens’ nest. The old male, had probably lived in the Weigh yalley for forty or more years, and there was no wild •creature there which w.ajs his equal when it came to open fighting in the •daytime, and it was only by strategy on a dark foggy night that he met his end. A polecat had his liar in the rocks beneath the eyrie, and this is an animal which prefers to stalk its prey in the dead of night, or at other times when it has all the advantage. Slowly, cautiously, and silently .the polecat was making iiis way towards the ravens’ nest. Along a ledge only wide enough for himself he crept. Not a stone was displaced ae he got nearer to the birds. It was the eggs that .he really wanted, but the polecat, •even if he has had a good meal, will Jkill just for the sake of killing. The polecat was ;iear enough almost tto see the birds, then went a foot nearer and waited. 'He seemed undecided what to do—it wits not a nice place to choose for a fight, and unless he got a death-grip on the bird his chances were slight. Suddenly the guardian of the nest lifted his head and knew from the powerful smell from the polecat that something was

wrong. At the same moment raven and polecat sprang. It was guess-work in the darkness. There was a cry from :the bird and a growl from the raider. J The latter got his teeth fixed in the bird’s neck. The raven raised his wings, fluttered madly, and fell oyer :the ledge with the phantom holding >Oll. Both, locked together, fell to a •grassy mound fifty feet below, and not until the bld worrier of the mountains was dead did the enemy release his grip.