FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 862, 4 January 1930, Page 6

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

LAPPING IT UP Among the latest shipment of birds for the Auckland Zoo are several varieties of lorys —fastidious birds that lap up their food like cats, and prefer Mellin’s food, condensed milk, and honey. Here’s to the lory, a bird that eschews The orthodox diet of captives in zoos, Scorning the peanuts, potatoes, and carrots Furnished to nourish conventional parrots. Heedless of sweetmeats like groundsel and thistle, All that it a'sks is to moisten its whistle With liquids like Mellin’s, or honey and milk, Absorbing these fluids like cats and their ilk. Brilliantly-plumaged, fastidious chap, Taught in the school of the jungle to lap— Here we are shown in the case of the lory Personal traits make an excellent story. * * * INDUSTRY One of the less obtrusive industries of a great city is the printing and developing of the photographic films of amateur photographers. Monday mornings, or the mornings after holidays, are particularly busy. It is remarkable what impatience the enthusiasts exhibit to have their film returned in the shortest time possible. If they have photographed Rangitoto, Cape Brett, the view from the Waitakeres, or some other enduring feature, they can never rest until they see their own interpretation. Everything is photographed nowadays. The most conspicuous thing at Aratiatia Rapids, Wairakei,' is not the rapids themselves, but the hundreds and thousands of film packets littered about among boulders and bushes. THE HILL TOP Lone Pine Hill, the rugged Gallipoli crest haunted by sacred memories, is to be Lone Pine Hill no more. A hardy young pine is raising its persistent branches in defiance of the summer heat and the winter snows that laid low almost as many men as Turkish bullets 14 years ago. Yet even if another pine robs Lone Pine summit of its characteristic feature, Lone Pine Hill will remain to New Zealand as it was in the 'days when battle raged upon its slopes. It is nothing new for landscape features to go on bearing their old familiar names after time or closer acquaintance has wrought changes. How many of us remember the first moments of disillusionment when, ascending One Tree Hill for the first time, we discovered that there was not one tree, but a whole bunch of them, clustered together on the summit? THE SECRETARY BIRD Somebody has written to the editor complaining about the retiring habits of the secretary bird, which is one of those creatures known to be on exhibition at the Auckland Zoo, but never seen except in the rare felicitous moments when it is in the front of the pen. For some reason or other the secretary bird has been remarkably favoured at the zoo. Admittedly it is a bird that has a habit of moving on a well-defined beat. In fact, but for its clerkly appearance, it might just as well be called the policeman bird. However, if every inhabitant of the zoo had its personal habits and preferences studied, visitors would see very few of them, or else would see some of the more ferocious samples at unpleasantly close quarters. Anyway, nearly every one who has aspired to see the secretary bird has a painful memory of having bent over to look under the lower branches of the screen of young trees. It is nearly as bad as trying to see the kiwi and the lace monitor, which to current knowledge have never yet made a public appearance. BALD ROCK A little band of adventurers who recently explored the roadless and Winterless North counts among its major triumphs an ascent of Bald Rock, that curious summit that dominates the landscape between Kaiwaka and Maungaturoto. Bald Rock is not actually the highest eminence in the locality, but by reason of its extraordinary contours it is much the most perpendicular. On nearly all sides it rises several hundred feet above its attendant spurs in a grand sweep of naked and frowning rock. There is a fairly easy track to the summit, where the usual records of names and dates have been hewn m the rock by successful alpinists. From the summit, one side appears to drop practically sheer. Out seaward loom the outlines of several islands, with the Great Barrier, most remote of all, taking up most of the horizon. In the other direction Maungaturoto appears to be almost on the doorstep of the hill, while far beyond blink the waters of the Kaipara harbour. Someone has estimated that there are 200.000,000 tons of good road metal in Bald Rock. Such statistics invariably arouse the cupidity of quarrymen, so those who wish to make the ascent should do so while there is yet time.