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Sydney Porter—Notes on New Zealand Birds



If it were only for my experiences with the Robins I should always

feel that my visit to the island had been worth while. Whenever we

went into the forest we invariably had a delightful encounter with

these birds, sometimes they would alight on the sticks we were carrying

and on several occasions we could have picked them up. The demeanour

of the Robin is that of welcoming the stranger into his forest domain.

He introduces himself and often his family, shows one how to make

oneself at home and after his mission has been accomplished he departs.

His affection is not cupboard love, for as far as we have been concerned

he has never taken the crumbs we have offered to him ; had we have

had any mealworms it would have been a different matter.


On Kapiti Island it was a great joy to see these delightfully

confiding birds more or less out in the open, where they can be seen

much more to advantage than in the sombre gloom of the forests.

The great attraction to the birds was a tennis court which was in the

making. It was situated on a steep hillside and necessitated a great

deal of earth being carted from one side to the other to level it up.

This was the Robin’s El Dorado, and all day long they grubbed about

in the newly turned-up earth for worms, grubs, and small insects.

The birds were absolutely fearless, and Mr. Wilkinson’s son told me

that he often had difficulty in avoiding injuring the birds when working,

they got so much in the way. Here in the brilliant sunlight they

appeared much brighter in colour than in the forest. In colour the

Robin is vastly different from the ordinary Englishman’s conception

of what a Robin should look like. The male is a very dark, mottled

leaden, greyish black, the centre of the abdomen ivory white. The hen

is very much duller in colour. A very conspicuous feature of the male

is a patch of snow-white feathers just above the beak, only exposed

when the bird is excited. During the time I watched the birds on

Kapiti this spot was exposed owing to the presence of a Weka, which

was also searching for worms in the loose earth. Another striking

feature is the beautiful lustrous black eye. It is a large bird almost

equalling in bulk the European Thrush, though not so long in body

measurement.


Unfortunately the Robin has many enemies. The caretaker on

Kapiti told me that he once opened a cat which he shot on the island



