The Fantail

Of the smaller species that live about the station policies, the Fantail, our second small homesteader, is equally fearless and sociable. Tree growth and shelter it is that brings him to the station. The garden itself contains little of interest to the Fantail, the herbaceous borders must appear wasted labour, and the green lawn of no account. He is a flycatcher first and foremost, a worshipper of woods and groves, happy in summer amongst his native bush, whilst in late winter the alien bluegums are a particular attraction. On calm July mornings parties of Fantails gather about their blossoming tops, flutter- page 142 ing and turning, diving and rising, and performing a hundred airy turns and somersaults in pursuit of their prey.

Never almost is he to be found at rest, for even perched on a bough he cannot remain quite still, but will sidle along its length, jumping from side to side, drooping his wings to their full stretch, or trailing and scraping them like a gobbling Bubbly-jock.

The little bird never remains for any time in the air, always after an instant or two alighting, before again he flutters off. Although, however, of so mercurial a temperament, and though so peculiarly a bird of the air, sometimes he is still and sometimes his little claws touch earth. Usually he takes small account of strangers near his nest, yet, on occasion, I have seen him still as a statue, crouched up and glowering almost as if prepared to dash forth in defence. Then, in late spring, sometimes I have watched him on the ground, hopping about and feeding on a little moth sheltering among the withered fronds of water polypod. Often it is a sheltered glade that holds him, where the wind hardly blows, where shadows have page break

Plate XXXVII. Fantail's Nest, shewing Tail.

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Plate XXXVII. Fantail's Nest in Manuka.

page break page 143 their edges soft, and grasses droop at noon over undried dews, or at an early hour on the sunny side of a clump of mahoe, he will be catching flies, while still the sward is silver mist, and while yet the skies are of paler blue. In summer he loves to hunt above the limestone runnels that trickle and drop from pool to terraced pool, deep in the sombre shade of groves of manuka.

Quite in the open, too, over the bubbled brooks, and just above their sheltering fringe of overarching growth, he flutters and flits in the fullest sun, dancing like a gnat or ranging at random like a wandering butterfly. In winter hundreds and hundreds of Fantails move from the uplands in a vertical migration towards Tutira lake, there to regale themselves during the cold weeks on the copious water insect crop.

It is not uncommon during the winter days to have a Fantail enter the house by an open door or window, returning morning after morning to hunt for house flies, fluttering round the cornices, perching on the pictures, neither courting attention or shunning it, perfectly unconcerned and at page 144 home. This fairy of the bush, however frail and fragile in appearance, is really a hardy little creature, and will weather storms that kill off some of the alien species in scores.

I have seen him hunting for flies in downpours of torrential rain, when the boles of the great pines were waterpipes, and from the patter and splash of the big drops a gritty mist arose throughout the forest undergrowth.

The cup nest is sometimes securely woven on to the top of some naked bough, and balances there, bare and exposed, or it may rest in a fork, or again be snugly slung beneath some sheltering branch. Sometimes the nest is deeply lined with the fluff of raupo heads, at other times with hair or wool or soft particles of shredded grass. The exterior is made to match its particular surroundings, with mosses, particles of decaying wood, and lichens. These are neatly smoothed off and bound with spider web, keeping all trim and taut, and acting as a sort of hair net.

Sometimes a tapering tail of mixed lichen and grass and wool is added, the idea perhaps borrowed from the pendent “old man's page break

Plate XXXIX. Fantail's Nest.

page break page 145 beard” that, yards in length, swings from the tawa boughs.

But with all this thought and care to match the surroundings properly, the Fantail fails to tidy up, and shreds of web and wool are left thick on the branches on the building route, and often betray the nest.

In manuka scrub it is always worth looking for a Fantail's nest beneath any dense lateral branch. I have known the curl of a broad flax blade act throughout incubation at once as umbrella and parasol. Birds feel the sun heat very soon, and when the sheltering boughs about a nest are temporarily tied back, the sitting bird at once begins to pant; manifestations of discomfort are even more apparent in the young.

Many Fantails' nests this season have been under observation, several of them actually under the camera, and others seen day by day, whilst at work on the nests of other species.

Fantails breed at least during six months of the year, for during this 1909‐1910 season I have noted in my diary the earliest nest in August, the latest in February.

The birds sit so close that not infrequently they can be stroked on their nests, and when on one occasion this season the sitting bird had to be moved, she suffered herself to be lifted off, clutching her tiny claws into the nest and holding on like a broody hen.

Sometimes almost no notice seems to be taken of the camera; at other times the birds are more suspicious, in this, as in other matters, each pair having its own particular idiosyncrasies. Sometimes the branch holding the nest has to be cut down and lowered—afterwards, of course, to be carefully replaced. On one occasion, when this had been done, one of the birds returned, and not finding the nest in its proper place, began to show all the signs of violent rage, scolding, and creaking, and tearing and tugging at the manuka like a very termagant.

In this particular case, as a matter of fact, she again took to her nest, where the full brood was hatched out and reared, but I have since wondered if I then witnessed, though perhaps in a minor degree, one of those fits of blind passion or jealousy that cause a bird to throw out and destroy its own eggs.

Plate XL. Fantail.

Plate XLI. Fantail.

The early nests are built with comparative leisure, but the late in very great haste and finished in a day or two. A nest discovered late in January, with only the rudiments or its base begun at 10 a.m., was practically complete by the afternoon of the following day, the Fantails then putting on the finishing touches and binding the edges with web. This nest contained but a single egg. Probably the Fantail rears on occasion three broods, for little time is allowed to elapse between the abandonment of the grown brood and the construction of another nest, and I have seen members of the former brood still supplicating food from one or a pair just about to take its place on a nest containing four fresh eggs. The young are fed on all sorts of small insects, caterpillars, moths, etc., and apparently have, like the young of the Waxeye and Warbler, the power of ejection of their indigestible parts. These little dry pellets I have noticed about the edges of the nest, or resting on the growths below. The droppings are, of course, at first removed by the parents, and later ejected by the half-grown birds themselves.

Immediately after vacation of the nest, page 148 to which, I believe, they never return, the young birds continue for a short time in the company of their parents, who train them to hunt while still continuing to supply food. They roost together at night, and the young may be seen at earliest dawn, sitting in a row on some convenient bough, cuddled together like little Love Birds.

Plate XLII. Fantail.