Bird Life on Island and Shore

XIV. The Morepork

XIV. The Morepork.

The covering of these Owlets was at first slategrey, changing when the eyes began to open—about the sixth day—into a beautiful white down. Their heads were remarkable—extraordinarily minute, so small, in fact, as hardly to resemble heads at all, and doubly disproportionate in comparison with the enormous feet and legs. During our first day's work near the nest, prior to the hatching of the second egg, the hen when inadvertently disturbed had immediately returned, sometimes flying straight on to her nest, at other times pausing to utter a growling menacing note; sometimes, too, alighting a little distance from the nest, she would creep forwards in crouching, furtive, feline attitudes, crawling towards her eggs foot by foot with dilated eyes, like a cat in the act of stalking.

During the second day, both eggs having hatched, so extraordinary were these movements, so seemingly uncalled for her excitement, that twice I put her off in order to watch her return. On the first occasion she flew back within a minute or two; on the second occasion she failed to return. The chicks began to stiffen with cold; the camera was hastily removed; we retired into thick cover. Still, however, she did not reappear. Minutes passed away; there was no course left except to dry-nurse the babies. There had occurred once more what again and again had previously happened. I had found for the twentieth time that a brooding parent will stand a first liberty taken, sometimes a second, but that normal habits and trains of association once disarranged sense of time and of responsibility ceased to exist. On this occasion had we not possessed maternal bosoms for the little Owlets they would have inevitably perished. Not until after four hours did the silly mother return, perching preliminarily as anticipated on a low branch near the nest. The babies were then immediately replaced, the masculine nurse withdrawn. A minute later we had the satisfaction of seeing the chicks mothered by their proper parent. She snuggled on to them with perfect unconcern. She had neither reckoned on the cold of the long hours' exposure—it had not troubled her—nor been amazed at the lively health of the chicks—it had not surprised her.

The cock bird, whom we had not seen at first, now as the nestlings grew older, appeared in the vicinity. One particular bough was the chosen perch of the fierce old reprobate. There in malignant reverie, full of vindictive recollections, he brooded over insults avenged and daylight wrongs redressed at dusk.

The unfortunate little Kuaka, whose fate has often been deplored as existing but to subserve another's need—as the chief food supply of Sea Hawk and Seagull—is victimised even by the Morepork. Although the manner in which the Owl, or perhaps the two Owls, slay their prey and afterwards manage to raise such a relatively immense weight many feet perpendicularly from the ground was not discovered, yet morning after morning we found in the nest sometimes one and sometimes two newly slain Diving Petrels. At first the parent birds rend the flesh from the bones, and feed it to their brood, but afterwards allow the chicks to help themselves “when so dispoged.” In their al fresco butcher's shop upon or alongside these enormous masses of meat the young Owls peacefully repose.