FREAK BIRD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 23, 23 December 1932, Page 2

FREAK BIRD.

WHITE-EYED SONGSTER. MISTAKEN FOR NIGHTINGALE. AUCKLAND, Dec. 22. A report that a nightingale had been heard singing at Balmoral Road, Mount Eden, in the locality between Dominion Road and Pine Street, was investigated by a number of interested people, including Mr R. A. Falla, ornithologist' at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

At the expected time and place —an acacia tree in the front garden of a house fronting Balmoral Road —the bird burst into song. Mr Falia identified it as a wlnte-eye, a small bird of greenish plumage which is fairly widely known also under the names of bliglit-bird or wax-eye. The strange jiart of it is that ' the wliite-eye lias no reputation its a songster. Its plaintive cheep as it Hits to and from trees and shrubs in gardens is well-known. According to authorities not one in a thousand sings, and its song has only been recorded in very dry summers. Mr Falla said that four weeks ago at Devonpuort he heard a strange bird-song early one morning, and on investigation found that it was a white-eye perched high in a tree. When informed that a nightingale was making melody at Balmoral Ire was fairly sure that it was n white-eye, but he felt that a trip out there was well worth while to make sure. But for the fact of identification by Mr Falla the Balmoral white-eye would certainly have been classified in the locality as a nightingale. Its notes were like the trilling of a canary, and Mr Falla said it was the nearest approach that one could have to the song of the nightingale. The white-eye is a migrant, and first made its appearance on the West Coast of New Zealand about 1856. It was probably blown across from Australia. The Maoris called it the Tauhou, which means “stranger.”