KINDNESS TAMES BIRDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1939, Page 6

KINDNESS TAMES BIRDS

TRUST SHOWN IN FRIENDS. The birds of New Zealand had no fear of man until he began to wage war on them. Even today, plenty of fantails, grey warblers, pigeons, robins, tomtits, tuis, bellbirds and others have the utmost confidence in people who are kind to them. Reports of these friendships are often received by the Forest and Bird Protection Society. Similarly, acclimatised birds such as sparrows and thrushes soon learn to trust persons who are kind to them. The other day on a bank where a man was digging, beside a path on the Town Belt. Wellington, a thrush hopped by the gardener's feet and boldly picked up worms for a brood which was ready for a feast in a copse nearby.

"You wouldn't see anything like that when I was a boy." remarked a citizen who had observed the incident. "The youngsters were then constantly hunting the birds with catapults (usually known as ‘shanghais’). You could not get closer than forty or fifty yards to a thrush or a blackbird in the open. What a change now! The other day I nearly trod on a thrush on a narrow path in Kelburn. It just hopped aside and looked at me. I might have been a cow or a horse —it had so little fear of me."

"Perhaps it thought you were a donkey." commented a cynical listener. In Wellington streets too, the city pigeons show no fear of mankind or motors when friends have scattered some crumbs or grain for them. Now and then one sees a motorist considerately stopping his car when the loud honking of his horn has failed to scare pigeons on the roadway.