AMONG THE MUTTON BIRDS
_| HE mutton birds flew down there in their thousands from Alaska and Labrador and Greenland, with the sole purpose of breeding. Ken Green went down there from Dunedin, where he is announcer-in-charge, with the aim of recording his observations of the bird life of the islands. The sardines and shrimps went there for reasons best known to themselves. The results of all this travelling to the Titi group of islands, south-west of Stewart Island, will. be more muttonbirds, fewer sardines and shrimps, and a programme by Ken Green describing the meeting of bird, sardine and himself. The programme will be broadcast from 4YA at 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2, and will be in addition to those now being presented from 4YA on Wed.
nesdays at 9.15 p.m. All talks were recorded when Mr. Green travelled to the Titi group on the M.V. Alert with a scientific expedition led by Dr. R. A. Falla, Director of the Dominion Museum. It may take the mutton bird (also known, to get progressively more dignified, as the Sooty Shearwater, or as Puffinus griseus) six months to make
that flight from the arctic north down to the islands south of New Zealand. "The birds nest in burrows which they make in the peaty soil." Mr. Green wrote to The Listener. "From 7 o’clock in the evenings we watched them coming in after a day’s feeding at sea (they must eat thousands of tons of sardines and shrimps daily), at first looking like a cloud of soot on the horizon, By dusk they were circling and zig-zagging overhead, not gracefully, but apparently dashing off in all directions at once. In fact, they were orienting themselves as they came down lower and lower till they reached the top of the bush (tall olearia trees). Then quite suddenly they stopped flying and plummeted straight down through the vegetation. They take terrific punishment as
they drop vertically, smashing into trees and landing with a good, loud thump. Imagine about two. pounds dead weight dropped from about 30 feet and you'll get the idea. Then you see a miracle. They get up and waddle along a track to the appropriate burrow which invariably will be only a few feet away. Their navigation is quite deadly."
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 813, 25 February 1955, Page 21
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380AMONG THE MUTTON BIRDS New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 813, 25 February 1955, Page 21
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