BIRD MAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 532, 2 September 1949, Page 21

BIRD MAN

ICK MORRIS, a Canterburyborn deershooter and trapper, is no ordinary bushman. He is a keen student of New Zealand’s wild life, and is recognised by New Zealand scientists as a good field naturalist. Recently he recorded a series of interviews for 3YA about the Kestrel Hawk (more properly the New Zealand falcon), Canada Geese, the Paradise Duck, and Red Deer, In a longer talk broadcast

in 3YAs Men at Work series, he gave a vivid description of a deey-shooter’s life in the wilds. Dick Morris was born in the backblocks behind Oxford, and has spent most of his life in New Zealand’s bush and mountain country, mainly in the South Island. For the past 20 years he has been trapping, fishing, shooting. and exploring in the mountains of the South Isiand, at first as a Government deer-shooter, although in more recent years he has taken to commercial (private) shooting, and now lives from the sale of skins. That is why he is correctly referred to as a deer "shooter," one who shoots deer all the year round for their

skins, in contrast with the deer "stalker," who hunts only in the roaring season, and is primarily interested in getting a good head. A feature of most of the interviews that Dick Morris made for listeners is his clever mimicking of birds (and of deer), and his ready flow of anecdotes and colloquialisms. When he is not shooting or reading or drying skins, he studies the wild life of our bush and mountain country. He isn’t a hermit, he says, and is quite willing to talk enthusiastically about his life irt the wilds, as these radio interviews show.