Friday, December 17, 2010

Sleep it off!


The tree ferns may be doing badly but around here the birds are loving the prolific natives flowering extravagantly in the early summer.

We found this Northland woodpigeon or Kukupa just outside our bedroom window one afternoon. I couldn’t have got the photo if he hadn’t been sleeping off a bit of a bender and oblivious to everything around him.

Local bird rescue people are now warning us to watch out for tui and kukupa that have become intoxicated with fermented nectar. I remember that workmates in the native bush in the 1950s used to tell me they could hit a wood pigeon over the head with a stick when it was really sozzled. Old-time Maori certainly put out nectar troughs to attract tui with the same intention.

It’s also the time of the year in which many people celebrate by overindulging in their own chosen nectars. Tonight Bev and I are taking the Community Patrol car out in support of the Aust-NZ all-night drink-driving blitz. It will go well tonight if revellers take a tip from our boozy pigeon and stay home and sleep it off!

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