RARE BIRD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 September 1940, Page 7

RARE BIRD

FOUND NEAR FEATHERSTON. INHABITANT OF SWAMPS. A small brown bird, speckled with grey and black, was picked up dead on a farm near Featherston. The finder, Mr G. T. Sorensen, thinking he had never seen a bird quite like it, sent it to the Dominion Museum for identification. The museum ornithologists identified it as a marsh crake, perhaps most seldom seen of all New Zealand birds.

Shy, and inhabiting the depths of lonely swamps, the marsh crake is at best only to be glimpsed scuttling between the niggerheads or swimming at the edge of pools in the marshes. Its inconspicuous colours, and remote habitat, make it a bird very rarely seen at close quarters. For similar reasons, it has been little studied in New Zealand; its breeding habits have not been observed here, and it is very seldom indeed that specimens are brought in for examination. Yet there is little reason to suppose the bird is rare. In three years in the early eighties, 17 specimens were brought in by a cat which was in the habit of hunting in the swamps near Petane. Hawke’s Bay. Many years ago several were seen on the swamp at Waingawa. The marsh crake is remarkable for its bright red eye, its long, slender toes, and its jaunty way of carrying its tail, reminiscent of a swamp hen. Though its feet are not webbed, it is a good swimmer. It lives on. shellfish, pond snails, and seeds. It is found in many countries, as well as New Zealand. There is another variety also found here, very similar both in appearance and habits.