OBSERVATIONS BY THE ROADSIDE

Forest and Bird, Issue 56, 1 May 1940, Page 12

OBSERVATIONS BY THE ROADSIDE

(By Hugh Ross.)

IN the bush festooning the placid waters of lovely Lake Rotoiti I saw, for the first time, a bush robin. For a moment I actually took it to be an unusually corpulent hen tomtit. Quite the tamest of our native birds I have ever encountered, he was perched upon a convenient root supervising my tying a swag to the cycle-carrier with interested and critical eye. An instant later he flew over to perch on my foot. He rested there for some time and not once did he deign to look up at me. Beady eyes unwinking, he peered and peered— might have thought short-sightedly—among the leafmold. Next minute he pounced triumphantly, returning with a very minute something that I think was a centipede. I offered this quaint visitor a handful of bread-crumbs. He accepted them readily enough, his claws gripping my finger firmly while he picked at the offering in a manner so violent as to send small particles flying in all directions. Fear? It never entered his head. I could have caught him a dozen times. I started the engine of the bike and he came and perched on the handle-bars to twitter at the noise. He showed only anger and ruffled his feathers, apparently ready and willing to attack had he but known where to direct his energies. I left him, twittering bewildered protest at the exhaust smoke-cloud oozing about him. As I rode away I thought of that little robin. I think of him yet, wondering if he will still be there when some day I go back. I fear not, however. You see his delightful tameness will probably prove his downfall—the first marauding cat to discover him will achieve an easy capture. At Lake Rotoroa there is a pretty little track cut through the dense bush: it follows the lake shore for a short distance ere striking off. Wandering along it one sunny afternoon I had my first close view of a parakeet. A cheery red and green chap, he flew from a branch above my head, alighting on the track to dig and delve with his powerful beak among small chips and fallen leaves. The manner in which those chips flew adequately bespoke the strength of the bill, too. He was very tame, allowing me to approach within a few yards

of him ere flying farther along the path to resume his grub-hunting. Nearly a quarter of a mile did he precede me, alighting every chain or thereabouts for further fossicking. Ido not think he welcomed my presence certainly I interrupted his quest for food a good many timesfor presently he flew over my head and alighted behind me. He was still on the path when I returned an hour later. This time he made a peculiar harsh cackling noise ere flying off into the forest. With green coat and long, graceful tail he was a strikingly handsome fellow. To have caged that bird would have been a cruel crime! I visited that wonderful and beautiful sight far down on the West Coast Franz Jose glacier. A narrow white track, so cunningly cut as to enable one to see only a very short distance ahead, leads from the hostel to the glacier. I returned along it on a still summer evening. Borne to my ears was the cry of a far-off bird. For a time I failed to place it;

then, suddenly, I knew, although I was hearing it for the first time. “Care!” it called. “Care!” Soon, far, far above I beheld it, hovering as a hawk might have hovered, above its glorious domain and looking down on the bush and the huge glacier white and grim in the approaching dusk. Afar he would see the blue Pacific and, facing it, those distant snow-peaks of the Southern Alps. What a domain! What an indescribably lovely home, vast, wild, and never to be forgotten! And how that lonely, poignant cry “care!” borne on the wings of night fitted it to perfection. I wandered on . . . that other kea I had seen was in my mind. “Happy? Of course he is happy! Why, he is in practically natural surroundings,” I was told enthusiastically. He was in an aviary perhaps sixteen feet square. There was a miniature pile of rocks and a large pine-cone at which a doleful kea picked and picked, or spent endless fruitless hours trying to pull his tin of water from the ground where it was securely pegged. Poor captive! Probably never again would he cry “Care!” in the manner his wild brother was now doing, unless, maybe, in his dreams. Days later I sat among some stunted manuka

watching the sun set over Lake Hawea. Already the rays had caressed the blue waters for the last time that day. By now the brown hills on the far side were turning purple. Flapping clumsily came a great black shag to alight on a stone within six feet of me. Through the screening manuka I peered at him with interest. Of a sudden he shook his sleek, glossy head and tiny beads of water flew, dimpling the tranquil lake surface. Next he stooped and bit tentatively at a small piece of drift-wood; I actually saw the bark crumple! Long moments he spent looking at the blue waters, white shore-line and big bare hills. And who shall say what thoughts were in his mind? With laborious flap of wings he lazily made off. That night as I lay on a bracken bed gazing at the white tent walls and listening to little noises of the calm night, I sighed. To-morrow I had a three hundred mile ride home because my holiday was ended. And what a holiday! With what a wealth of flora and fauna New Zealanders are blessed. More and more was forced upon me the wisdom that lies in the clarion-call of the Forest and Bird Protection Society: New Zealanders, cherish your heritage!