Identifier: muttonbirdsother00guth (find matches)
Title: Homestead Mason Bay, in Mutton birds and other birds
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Guthrie-Smith, H. (Herbert), 1861-1940
Subjects: Birds -- New Zealand
Publisher: Christchurch, N.Z. : Whitcombe and Tombs
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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nd neither saw nor heard a Dotterel inthe vicinity,—in fact I never saw or heard,morning, noon, or late evening, a second birdon the hill. This Dotterel on the sand ridge wasmoreover lame in one foot and running on littlemore than a stump. The diseased or injuredclaw was almost gone, and seemed to havebeen withered and drawn up into a knot. The New Zealand Dotterel, like the Ground Lark, is liable to diseases of the foot; foranother bird on the beach was also sufferingfrom a shrivelled foot very much like that ofmy friend of the granite hill. On the seventh day, when the gale was over,and a deluge of rain had set in, from the east,I noticed, too, that she had, as if furious wuthhunger and using abnormal methods, dee)3lyprobed the wet hard-set sand within an inch ortwo of her nest. Only starvation, I believe,could have induced any bird to behave thus. Near the nest even the faintest signs thatinvite attention are eschewed, the ))ird itself asfar as possible avoiding the neighbourhood.
Plate XLVIII
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Homestead Mason Bay
AND OTHER BIRDS U3 The loss of this sitting birds mate could, of couTse, only recently have occurred; but I believe it had occurred, and that now she was attempting ahaie to hatch out the doubtlessmuch-incubated eggs, and in her eifort evendenying hei-self food. Immediately upon emerging from their shells the young, I think, are taken down to the beach, not at hrst to feed themselves, but for the shelter and cover of the intricate dimes. On the spent waves very edge and where thebul)bles of their thin wash instantly disa))))earthe mature birds may be watched feeding onstuff exposed by the falling tide, not )nobingas the granite hill bird had done, and as the bill formation of the species might suggest that thebreed should always do, Imt very delicately gathering their meals from the surface. 114 MUTTON BIRDS

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