The Fern Bird

the Fern Bird, like several other species at Tutira, has very much increased in numbers, and has adapted himself to the changed conditions of the run. Years ago I wrote that in the many raupo beds around the lake, the bird might be heard, but that the title “Fern Bird” was a misnomer, for the species at Tutira was never found in the bracken.

The run had been, and was then, still to a great extent covered with deep fern. This growth was swept periodically by immense fires, continuing to burn day and night, sometimes for a week at a time. page break

Plate LI. Fern Bird's Nest in clump of Cutty Grass.

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Plate LII. Fern Birds by Nest.

page break page 161 After one of these conflagrations the face of the country was quite black and desolate, and all ground birds and feeble fliers destroyed. After 1895, however, the stocking of the land began to affect the fern, the exuberance of its growth began to lessen, and the fern fires became less frequent and less sweeping. Season by season the transformation became more marked, and as the fern became thinner and more dwarfed, so did the Fern Bird increase and multiply and replenish the earth. He has found shelter and safety and food supply over poor lands, and along the edges of hundreds of boggy creeks, spots now comparatively safe, but fire-swept and utterly desolated in the early eighties and nineties. On Tutira he has at last truly earned his name of Fern Bird, and everywhere nowadays through the areas of low fern can be heard his metallic “click,” “click,” in isolated syllables. His other favourite haunt and breeding ground is amongst the damp flats, where cutty grass grows rank and thick. Four nests were got this season, and all of them were in this growth. Like other species on the run they wax and wane in numbers, but during page 162 the last couple of seasons have become very plentiful.

Before this year I had only obtained a single nest, very neatly built in raupo. This season alone we got four, McLean discovering one in late September (29th), and another in early October (1st). I myself got two nests on the one day in December. McLean's, no doubt, was the early brood, and mine the late.

The nest is planted deep—buried—a foot or fifteen inches in the heart of a bunch of cutty grass, and usually a clump is selected, growing in a soft, wet spot, the Fern Bird, like the Pukeko, relying on these extra safeguards to fend off vermin and trampling stock. Fern Bird's nests can be discovered most easily on horseback, owing to the extra view, and by continuous riding through these half-dry swamps, specimens are sure to be put up. If, when a bird is flushed, it flies off horizontally, probably it has been merely disturbed at feeding or resting, or gathering nest materials. If, however, the bird pops straight up out of the centre of a clump, the nest, after patient peering, will usually be found deep set among the saw-toothed blades. In form page break

Plate LIII. Male and Female Fern Bird by Nest.

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Plate LIV. Fern Bird feeding Young.

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Plate LV. Fern Bird entering Nest.

page break page 163 it is a cup-shaped structure, the outer layers composed of cutty grass, the inner of grasses and pliable bents, but it is the finishing touches that peculiarly mark the nest. At the base of its interior, small blue Pukeko feathers are so arranged that their curly tops meet, and to a great extent conceal the eggs.

Ordinarily, the species is shy, but in spring the male loses to some extent his timidity. He will then, regardless of the presence of man, mount to the very top of a flax stick, climbing up in little runs, like a mouse or a house fly. His tail is all the time bent in towards the stem; indeed, like a young bird swung in the air, the Utick seems to use his tail for balancing.

He soon becomes accustomed to the camera, and many of our photos this year were taken at the distance only of a few feet. The nestlings were chiefly fed on daddy-long-legs, though occasionally moths, grubs and caterpillars were also brought in.

We noticed that the sacs of excrement, when borne off, were mostly taken to one particular spot, probably not designedly, but from force of habit, the particular blade of flax where they were usually page 164 dropped being presumably on the line of the richest food collecting area.

Sometimes the Fern Bird will fly forty or fifty yards, his long abraded tail hanging down all the time, and giving his flight a ridiculously feeble air. Usually these efforts are much shorter, and when constantly visiting the nest, much of the distance is covered on the ground, the bird running like a mouse beneath the overarching leaves and threading its way with the utmost ease through the thickest obstructions.

Often, for reasons connected with light and shade and proper background, a bird has to be diverted from its accustomed track. With some species this is easily done, but it was in vain we tried, with heads of cutty grass, to deflect the Fern Bird from his chosen routes. He was always able to push through our barrier, rustling through the sere, brown growth and appearing unconcernedly on the nest's edge with moth or daddy-long-legs.

Unlike the Warbler, Waxeye and Fantail, where the percentage of destruction, both of eggs and young, is very great, perhaps, indeed, one-third, the Fern Bird seems to suffer no great loss. The nest is excellently page break

Plates LVI. a. Fern Bird about to settle on Nest.

Plates LVI. b. Fern Bird and Young.

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Plates LVII a. Fern Bird Feeding Young.

Plates LVII b. Inspecting Nest for Sanitation.

page break page 165 concealed, and its site very unattractive to vermin, both on account of the sawtoothed sedge and the wet surroundings. The bird itself is too small to be worth the pursuit of Harriers; and Wekas, without great difficulty, could not obtain footing on the stiff, bristling clumps wherein the nest is hid. The Morepork at night, even should he discover the nest, would be kept off, too, by the same harsh growth. In fact, the Fern Bird is likely to survive, for he can obtain sustenance even in the most arid and barren lands, neither does a low temperature affect him unfavourably, for I have noticed the bird fully two thousand feet above sea level. His metallic “click,” “click,” is likely, therefore, long to be heard in the land.