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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 5 (September 1, 1930)

Voice of Spring

page 31

Voice of Spring.

It will soon be time for that glad sound to the bird-lover and the country rover, and to many a town-dweller as well, the first song of the shining cuckoo, the pipi-wharauroa. Since time immemorial this little messenger of the new year has been flying to and for across the ocean on its annual migrations, and its arrival in New Zealand has been the signal for the Maori to plant the kumara. Its call ending in a long-drawn high-whistling “tio-o” is peculiarly the shining cuckoo's cry; it can never be mistaken for the note of any other bird.

Unlike most of our other native birds, the pipi-wharauroa is no shy shunner of towns and farms. Wherever there is an inviting grove of trees with promise of food—how hateful those fruitless funeral-like pinus insignus plantations!—there the shining cuckoo's “kui, kui,” and its cheery “tio-o” may be heard some time or other in the summer. I have heard it in the bluegum plantation alongside the Rotorua railway station.