Birdy, Birdy

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 20, 10 November 1939, Page 45

Birdy, Birdy

Not many of us have managed to grow up without stealing from birds. " Nesting" is rare fun mostly because it’s a treasure hunt, and it’s the one with the quick eyes and the nimble legs for shinning up trees who wins. Most-of us have collected eggs from the hedge sparrow and the thrush and the lark and the blackbird, as well as our little native fellows, but we have been careful to take only one or two of the little family we find, not to disturb the nest and not to frighten the mother away. * * of When I was tiny I lived next door to a magpie who chased after me and pecked my shins. I thought no eagle could be fiercer. And long after, I was afraid of geese because they stretched their necks in the same fierce hungry way as he. We never robbed that nest--it was a very tall gum tree, and well out of reach-but he was a born thief himself. All sorts of things kept disappearing — nuts and bolts that we would put down for a moment while we were mending our carts and engines and trolleys would simply vanish. The maid kept losing brooches and at last when our mother lost a ring we all sat down to think. Then there was a raid. We nailed cross-pieces securely all the way up that tall gum trunk till we could reach the magpie’s branch and peer into his nest. There was everything — everything we’d ever lost! He had a regular treasure chest of all the things that glitter, even to silver paper! * * * A summer or two ago a great pine was felled where I was holidaying in the country. We climbed all over the fallen branches looking for nests, though, of course, most of the eggs were broken. There was a huge nest-a mag-pie’s-bound securely round with fencing wire! It was too tight to unthread from the twigs. In and aut, in and out he’d threaded it

-and no doubt boasted disgustingly to his neighbours of his ultra-modern home! What puzzled us was how he'd lifted such an awkward and weighty burden to such a height. I expect it was one more instance of his liking for glitter. I know a bird who flew off with the keys of a car and dropped them, when he was chased, into the crotch of a tree. If the owner hadn’t been a goodish climber perhaps his car would be still sitting a very long way from home!

JILL