GRATITUDE FOR FOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 October 1939, Page 7

GRATITUDE FOR FOOD

TUIS’ SONGS FOR FRIENDS. More and more correspondents of the Forest and Bird Protection Society are reporting that they have the songs of tuis as a reward for their planting of shrubs and trees which yield nectar or berries for these charming birds. The evidence shows that tuis are not conservatives. They are progerssivc in their search for new sources of food. I For example, last spring Mr H. Guth-rie-Smith saw nine tuis at one time sipping nectar from the flowers of a bi grhododendron. This spring the same flowers lured four tuis to one plant in Mrs Knox Gilmer's garden at Te Marua. in the Hutt Valley. Recently, at York Bay. on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour, nine tuis were seen together in an acacia tree. A resident of Cashmere Hills, Christchurch, saw tuis on the extreme tips, the rosy fingers,'of pine trees. Evidently they were finding some J sweet "stick-jaw." That citizen, during j' the snowy period of the winter, had I

sixteen tuis as guests which had delightful feasts of watered honey. A pair decided to stay on L;y the raising of a familv near the house