ROMANCE OF A TOMTIT

Forest and Bird, Issue 51, 1 February 1939, Page 11

ROMANCE OF A TOMTIT

(By Hugh Ross)

THE NEST IN THE BROAD-LEAF TREE

If Tomtit, from his slantwise perch on the bole of a towering young Miro, had cared to look about him that sunny morn, he would have seen, far beyond the green and yellow bush, the purple haze of the Pacific Ocean and the curving white loveliness of Porpoise and Curio Bays’ shoreline. But Tomtit didn’t look about him. His somewhat shabby attire of black and yellow* suggested to any chance onlooker exactly what he was—a plain unsophisticated business man with brain and energies solely centred upon the day’s problems. And the pressing problem was just where to find one of those choice morsels relished by insectivorous birds. Extra-choice this titbit must be, for Tomtit intended to use it as a token of faith and goodwill to her whom only that morning he had won— coy, demure spouse. Day dreaming indeed! Like a small stone statue, so still was he as he clung to his perch, staring with unwinking gaze at a patch of wet moss on the root of a maple tree. There was a grub on that root; Tomtit felt it in his bones. Ah-h! A spasmodic jerk of head, wings and tail together with a tightening of leg sinews. Steady a bit, though. After all, it might be only a piece of moss! No; it wasn’t moss. Those little brutes of grubs had a trick of matching to perfection their colour with envi-

ronment; but that time he had definitely seen him move. The ill-fated grub was only momentarily aware of something akin to a thunderbolt. Alighting upon a dead twig, Tomtit, with a low twittering cry, attracted the attention of his mate. She came immediately upon hearing his call, darting with unexpected suddenness from the dark recess of a knot-hole in the trunk of a small broadleaf. A pretty sight indeed, those two sleek heads together as the hen accepted the offering of her lord. A few seconds only she dallied before hurrying off to explore further the possibilities of that wondrous broadleaf. Tomtit remained longer, trilling a short song, preening a feather, stretching himself, leg and wing and generally (in the observer’s opinion at least), basking in the sunshine of his wondrous success as a grub-hunter.

Abruptly he catapulted himself a short two feet along his perch, bounced (the right word) up and down several times, and was gone beneath the canopy of multi-coloured leaves.

Tomtit’s second catch was, from his point of view, no doubt quite as successful as his first. Seized at the base of a rotting chip, it was an ugly brownish-white centipede, thick as a wheaten stalk and fully three-quarters of an inch long. With calculated deliberateness, Tomtit achieved a head-hold, carried the protesting loathsome insect to a convenient perch where, with crisscross movement of bill, he battered it to death. And it proved no easy task. For as long as twenty seconds at a time, he strove to kill his prey. Although he must have averaged more than one blow a second, the centipide squirmed and twisted, curling its sinuous length about its captor’s bill and eyes. For a full five minutes those bangs were audible as far as thirty yards. Whether or not he feared a bite from the centipede I do not know, but certain it is that never once did Tomtit release his head grip. On other insects he would have varied his hold from time to time; this one, however, he refused to hold by the middle for more convenient carrying until its wrigglings were stilled, and he was definitely satisfied that it was quite dead.

The hen bird accepted the second catch as

readily as the first and returned to business just as promptly as the first time. For a while Tomtit watched her swinging in mid-air, tug-tugging in desperate attempts to wrench a piece of green moss from the trunk of a huge rimu. When success rewarded her efforts, it was to the knot hole in the broadleaf that she bore her prize.

For quite two hours at a time the hen bird worked. Mostly green moss at —nearly all of it taken from the small patch growing on the rimu—she carried to the broadleaf. As the walls of the nest rose, she shaped it by turning round and round inside, wings protruding over the sides, throat and breast against the inner walls. And now, as the home took its cup shape, she began to add a lining of velvety brown tree-fern down, cunningly bound and rebound with spider webs. For ten minutes at a time she fossicked in the forest for those spider webs.

While she was busy with the home-making, Tomtit brought her food. Everything he found, with the exception of. very small particles, he carried to her. When she wearied of the work, the two birds went off on a mad, food-questing frolic among the trees. But the hen bird could not stay away long. She had to keep returning just to assure herself that the wonderful nest really was still there. On such occasions, Tomtit accompanied her. With every sign of true male awkwardness, he peered within the magic palace before drawing hurriedly back as though in mortal fear of knocking over or breaking something. Within an hour the building was resumed.

Six weeks later, Tomtit was again perched on the miro, wondering if he could possibly add yet another insect to the bulging load in his beak. With three sturdy, husky youngsters to help feed, he had no leisure for day-dreaming. They were always hungry, no matter how hard he hunted. Grubs, insect lava, moths, small flies and now and again big flying ants with evil-looking blood-red bodies—his family devoured them all.

Tomtit didn’t catch another insect just then. He felt that he hadn’t time. Just once the bright eyes, a trifle weary now, perhaps, took in the glorious panorama of Curio Bay. And it may be that deep down in his heart he sighed. Next instant, with the speed of a thrown stone, he was heading for a certain small broadleaf.

* South Island colour of Tomtit