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Sydney Porter—Notes on New Zealand Birds



commonest birds on the island. Lacking the pugnacious qualities of

most of New Zealand’s birds, they are singularly friendly to one

another and also to human beings. As the small agile flocks pass

through the forest and spy the traveller, first one and then another

will come down to within a few feet, taking full note of the intruder

before passing on. One would imagine them saying, “ Hello, pleased

to see you, but sorry that I cannot stop.” To my mind theirs is the

most musical song of all the birds inhabiting the New Zealand forests,

not loud, nor is it sustained, but what there is of it is incredibly sweet,

in fact they have earned for themselves the vernacular name of “ bush

canary ”. Like most of their other forest companions they have a

great variety of notes. One flock which I occasionally encountered

during my stay on the Barrier had a very striking call ; a male would

whistle “ Diddly, diddly, dee ” very distinctly, and his mate would

answer in a lower and softer strain the same call. I only heard the

birds in this one flock utter this very distinctive call.


In their actions, the Whiteheads greatly resemble the Zosterops, in

moving restlessly from one part of the forest to another, never for

one moment still. During their search for insects they assume all

manner of poses, often running like a Creeper up the branches or trunks

of the trees. On the mainland the Whitehead is scarce, for it is not

a bird which has in any way adapted itself to the conditions of

civilization, and as the forest disappears so does the friendly little

Whitehead, and no doubt in the years to come when most of the

remaining forest tracts have been burned, like the Stitchbird, it will

find on Little Barrier one of its last refuges.


The names of the Little Barrier Island and the Whitehead are to

me synonymous, for it is impossible to think of one without the other.


This bird is about the size of a Sparrow, and of a cinereous brown,

the whole head, neck, and upper breast, pure white, fading to grey

where it meets the brown. The female has the white parts much

greyer.


The Whitehead is one of the few birds which have made a welcome

reappearance during the last twenty years or so. Buller, in his great

work on the birds of New Zealand, speaking of the Whitehead, says

“ The last-named was certainly at that time the commonest bird of



