Spring’s Fashion Parade at the Zoo

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 134, 27 August 1927, Page 8

Spring’s Fashion Parade at the Zoo

SPRING’S fashion parade has begun at the zoo The birds are airing their new season’s plumage, and every day sees the colour grow more brilliant. Their response to the call of spring ia glowing inspiration.

Contrary nature has provided the male birds with most elaborate wardrobes. The less-distinguished females must be content to don drab greys and browns for the most part. Watch the majestic peacock strut the green lawn while his comparatively humble partner looks on with admiration. With a proud screech he opens his magnificent tail to a width of eight feet and dazzles her with all the colours of the East. His head is brilliantly, strikingly blue; there are a myriad colours as the sunlight plays on those spreading tail feathers —bronze and green and gold as perfectly placed as only nature can place them. Just a few weeks ago he was as drab as his female who seems quite content to bask in his reflected glory of new clothes. Nearby the white peacock preens his new suit—a glorious sight, though less colourful. The screeching macaws seem all excited about their robes. A valuable blue bird will become perfect in a few weeks. His back is a rich blue and the breast a warm orange. In the same cage are the yellow and red macaws, vivid patches of colour as they scramble up and down the netting. Nearby is the toucanette, from Brazil, a strange bird which has just blossomed out in feathers of a remarkable green. He is inordinately proud of a curiously-marked bill. Next door the crested barbet, a native of Natal, is chuckling away to his companions, obviously because of his new set of speckled black and green feathers. The Java sparrows are looking particularly fit. They have finished their moulting and shine like silk. A pretty

little pink bill and slate coloured feathers with black markings and touches of pink make bright spots among the manuka branches. The alert grass parakeets, b r i 1 liantly green, from Australia, keep company with dozens of finches and other tiny birds. Here are the yellow and olive birds, all as busy as busy can be weaving nests. Only a few weeks ago they were as drat as ordinary sparrows. The widow bird spreads her glossy black tail feathers in the sun and stretches wings the feathers of which are gracefully marked with orange. The scarlet ibis is getting richer in colour every day, and the pink spoon-

bill is beginning to resemble a cone of pink ice-cream on stilts. Among the tiniest of birds is the St. Helena waxbill, a pert little fellow with a red bill, bright, bright eyes and speckled breast and tail. His new clothes are complete. An ariel toucan from Brazil sports yellow, scarlet and black —a brilliant outfit for such a quaint bird. Nature was in her most lavish mood when she dressed the pheasant family. The golden pheasants look particularly happy and healthy. Their head and neck feathers are the most brilliant golden colour, the breast is scarlet, and the wing and lower neck feathers are magnificently marked. Occasionally they stop in front of their dull hens and puff out the neck feathers like vain courtiers. Not quite so bright, but even more lovely, is the Amherst pheasant, also from China. His neck is silver with black markings, and his whole wardrobe is purer and more harmoniously blended than his golden countryman, but both are very lovely. Nearby the curiously speckled guinea-fowls cackle with envy. For quiet dignity and beauty the mandarin duck is difficult to equal. He is a charming mixture of purple, scarlet, red, white and bronze-green. The breast and sides are finely marked, and as he floats across his tiny dominion his wing feathers turn up like two little sails. The flamingoes are taking on a richer tint as the days become warmer, and the sacred ibises are already flapping a complete new set of dignified black and white wings. Not far away- the cranes are stretching their long legs and wings, and the last of last year’s feathers are going with each stretch. The most beautiful of them is the Cape crane, who proudly carries a pretty gold crown on his head. The yellow-billed egret looks very lonely and very beautiful. Except for a slight stain on the bill and the head he is wearing the whitest of white feathers and a dainty plume. There are many more in the parade —-pukekos, ducks of all colours and varieties, hawks and eagles, parrots and cockatoos, landrails, and even weka and the kiwi. All of them are flaunting their new plumes and make a colour show which Dame Fashion cannot equal in her 1927-2 S dress parade. O.A.G.