Feathered visitors

I think I am just a few feathers short of being a twitcher. I love birds, and NZ has its fair share of amusing ones.

This morning I had a Kereru sighting. I may have mentioned this chappie before; he is our native wood pigeon. They were hunted almost to the verge of extinction by the Maori, on account of their rather tasty meat. It didn’t hurt that they were very slow and cumbersome and therefore easily caught.
We have an organisation in the city which keeps track of Kereru sightings. I will record our friend on their website later. I think he is the same “local” I spotted about 8 months ago. I suspect he enjoys the peace and quiet of our street and the abundance of telegraph wires to sag on. In fact, it’s a pretty good way of detecting a Kereru neighbourhood. Check out how many electricity or telephone wires dip heavily in the middle. Chances are that ten ton Charlie has been perched there for the afternoon.

Illustration courtesy Buller, Walter Lawry, Birds of New Zealand, 1873.