Part 2

A particular throstle will choose his favourite spot to sing from, and will keep to it more or less throughout the season. The point of a gable of the house is one such place (it is a Cheshire belief that a throstle brings you good luck when he chooses your house to sing from), the top of the highest chimney has been another, and the weathercock on the outbuildings has been chosen year after year by a throstle as his own peculiar stand. This last is a favourite platform for the musical performances of other birds as well; a robin constantly uses it, and a swallow, and more than once I have seen a little wren there singing away with all his might, a might altogether out of proportion to his tiny body.

Whilst most throstles seem to like as high a perch as possible to sing from, I remember one that habitually poured forth the flood of his melody raised above the level of the ground by a clod of earth only.

One morning (in March, 1897) I heard a throstle uttering a peculiar shrill kind of cry, not a long-drawn-out note such as I have twice heard from a blackbird, but a succession rather of short notes. At first I couldn't make out what or where the noise was, but traced it after a time to the thrush, who continually uttered the cry as he was hunting for worms on the grass.

A standing marvel is the way in which a thrush can tell that there is a worm below the ground at a particular place. As he goes hopping about in a promiscuous sort of way, he suddenly stops with his head on one side looking and listening for a second, then he pounces on the exact spot and forthwith pulls out a worm. Sometimes he makes a mistake, or, at all events, fails to make a catch, but not often. How does he do it? Does his quick sight detect some slight movement, or his quick ear some slight sound? Or has he any other sense of smell or sensation that helps him? Another marvel about the matter to anyone who has himself tried to pull a worm out of the ground is the ease with which a thrush manages so neatly and quickly to extract its victim entire.

I have found a throstle's nest in the side of a haystack, and was told of one in a pigstye and of another inside the porch of a house. In 1901 a throstle built in the roof of the lychgate of the churchyard close to this garden. Although the first nest was taken she made another in the same place and had very nearly hatched her eggs when again the thoughtless cruelty of boys made all her labour vain and abused the confidence she had so bravely shown in men. She used to sit on quite calmly, though only just above the heads of people as they went through the gate.

Generally speaking, throstles are so tame here that they hardly move out of your way, at most hopping a foot or two further off; and one will go on with his song undisturbed as I pass through an archway of pink thorn on which he is perched not two feet above. They are naturally, I think, more friendly in their disposition towards human beings than blackbirds, which go clattering off whenever they see you near them.

In May, 1902, there must have been at least 20 throstles' nests in the garden itself. There were five, all in holly bushes, within 30 yards, by the side of one path, two in one tree, both of which had young ones in them at the same time. One bird had a nest just over the entrance to the house porch, through which we were in and out the whole day long, and we saw nothing of it until the young were hatched. Another chose an extraordinarily exposed situation, in a rhododendron just opposite the front door, from which we could see her quite plainly as she sat. The nest was actually not more than a foot or so from a little narrow path. We were constantly up and down this path and could hardly avoid brushing the leaves at the end of the very bough on which the nest was built, yet I never once saw her fly off. She used to keep her eye on us, but did not move even if we stood still only a few feet away and looked at her. This nest was under continual observation from the laying of the first egg to the flight of the last nestling, which remained for the best part of a day after the rest had flown.

On the other hand, in strange contrast to this confidence, there were three nests farther away from the house (one indeed absurdly close to a gate in constant use), from which the birds flew off with a loud, startled cry if one waited for a moment near them. In one of these three nests the brood was reared, but of the other two one was deserted and one taken.

In 1899 a friend in the village assured me that there had been a throstle's nest with eight eggs in it close to her house. As only four of them, she said, hatched, perhaps the first hen was killed after she had laid her complement of eggs, and the cock brought home another mate to his ready-made nest.

I find a note that once I saw throstles join with starlings in their raid upon elder-berries, but I have seen nothing since to confirm this.

Until the winter of 1910-11 I very seldom found a throstle attempt to get the fat put out for tits; they generally content themselves with the crumbs that have fallen on the ground underneath. If the weather is at all severe they will come with sparrows to the fowls' food, but in a sharp, continuous frost they disappear almost entirely. (Blackbirds and some missel-thrushes remain.) This was very marked in February, 1902. Before the severe cold began throstles were plentiful; after it had continued for a few days not a single one was to be seen; but when the thaw set in, in less than a week they abounded again on every side.

Some redwings come here every winter, but they are less common than fieldfares and they are not so noticeable. The points of difference between a redwing and a throstle, the rather smaller size, the red on the side, the slight variations in shades of colour and markings, may easily be passed over.

I have from my window seen a single redwing quite close to the house, in company with a single fieldfare, both busy with the holly berries, and in February, 1909, I saw all five of the commoner British thrushes collected together and between them quite covering a field which had lately been broken up by a subsoil cultivator.

A farmer tells me that the local name for redwing is "Kit," but I see in "The Birds of Cheshire" that "Kit" is given as one of the names for fieldfare.

We see fieldfares chiefly when they first arrive in October, and again in early spring, before they leave, but, of course, there are some with us most of the winter. The people here call them "Bluebacks," and it was remarked as a curious thing in the late cold spring of 1891 that on April 24th bluebacks were heard on one side of a field and a cuckoo on the other.

Blackbirds are, I think, nearly as plentiful as throstles, in spite of relentless persecution by strawberry-growing market gardeners. Sometimes, indeed, one is oneself compelled to own that we have a few more blackbirds than we really want. In hot, dry summers, when the ground is hard, they do much damage to the apple crop. Not content with making short work with the "windfalls," they peck holes in some of the best fruit on the trees. I noticed this especially in 1899, and again in 1901 and 1911. In 1899 I saw four cock blackbirds amicably devouring a fallen apple together.

Though a blackbird's song is beautifully mellow, it is generally disconnected and fragmentary, but I remember hearing one once that seemed continuous, or at least much more so than usual.

One day at the end of March (in 1895) I saw perched on a twig of an oak tree and sitting quite close up against the trunk, a cock blackbird, which continually uttered a small, thin sharp note, almost like the squeaking of a slate pencil. He sat still in the same position for a considerable time, only opening his mouth at intervals of about a minute, or half a minute, to make this doleful noise. The same year, on June 15th, in exactly the same place, a cock blackbird went through exactly the same performance.

Every winter blackbirds have been amongst the most regular pensioners at the food-stand.

Several times during May in 1898, and again in 1899 and 1900 and since, I noticed a meeting of three, always, I think, three, cock blackbirds at one particular spot, always the same, near a holly tree on the lawn, which happens to be just opposite my window, where I could watch them easily and unobserved. They seemed to go through a regular set performance, like a game or a dance. They did not fight, though they sometimes sparred a little, but ran round and round and in and out, following and passing one another. It reminded me of a friendly gathering of husbands for amusement, while their wives were busy with household cares at home!

I was much interested one day (March, 1902) in the proceedings of two pair of blackbirds. One very elegant cock, slender and graceful, with intensely black coat and very bright orange bill, was seeking to impress the hen of his choice by a series of little runs on every side of her, with his tail spread out and sweeping the grass, his body in the shape of a bow, his beak almost touching the ground; meanwhile, the object of all this attention seemed to consider it a mere matter of course and to be calmly indifferent. Presently another cock, not nearly so spruce, came on the scene accompanied by another mate. The gallant dandy evidently had no stomach for fighting, and promptly disappeared behind a holly bush when the newcomer threatened to assault him. His partner, however, was made of sterner stuff, and without more ado attacked and drove away both the intruders.

I have never heard that there is any real difference in size, but hen blackbirds appear bigger than cocks, just as young gulls in immature plumage seem larger than old ones. I suppose the different colour has something to do with it, and perhaps the cock's feathers are more closely set than the hen's.

My wife told me that she had seen one evening in September (1907) 16 blackbirds on the tennis ground together. This seems perhaps rather a large order, as they say, but in the following September I counted nine myself, to the best of my belief, all of them cocks.

IV.

CHATS, ROBINS AND WARBLERS.

In spring, and again in autumn, wheatears pass through, and may be seen about for several days at a time. In April and May, 1908, a pair stayed so long in some rough ground near the bank of the Ship Canal that I thought they might be going to take up their quarters there for the season, but by May 31st they had disappeared.

We always have a fair number of whinchats in the meadows, and hardly a year passes without seeing them on the grass in the garden itself. One very wet summer, when in the low-lying lands the haycocks were standing for days surrounded by water, I remember being struck by the number of whinchats to be seen perching and chatting first on one haycock and then on another.

Though whinchats are so comparatively common, and their usual note, exactly like the knocking of two pebbles together, is constantly heard, their pretty little song, a cadence of a few notes repeated over and over again, I do not remember to have noticed here.

Only once have I seen a stonechat in the neighbourhood of this garden. This was in October, 1890. On the opposite side of the river the land had been raised by material excavated in the making of the Ship Canal, and was at that time wild and covered with a strong growth of all kinds of weeds. It was on a wire fence that ran along this bank that I saw the bright little bird. And there, with a curious pendulum-like movement of its tail, it continued to sit for a considerable time, giving me ample opportunity to study it leisurely through a field-glass.

Though redstarts are not uncommon in Dunham Park a few miles away, only once have I seen one in the garden, in August, 1894. It stayed for several days, and was never far away from the place where I first saw it. I noticed that other birds who are at home here, wagtails especially, seemed to look upon it as an interloper and resented its intrusion.

One of the first things that I remember about the natural history of Warburton is a brood of four white--or more strictly speaking, cream-coloured--robins that were hatched in a neighbouring garden in 1872. They were jealously watched over by the owner of the garden, and I often saw two of them until the autumn. Then they must either have been taken (and many people were after them) or have moulted to the ordinary robin colours, for we saw them no more.

Robins are plentiful in the garden and in the neighbourhood generally. They show much courage and skill in getting at the fat on the food-stand, no matter how greatly the difficulties of doing so may have been multiplied.

It has been said that robins have more power than most birds to see through the window into a room, and I certainly have observed that though as a rule neither robins nor tits take much notice if I am standing close by the window, yet sometimes a robin appears that will spy me out as I sit by the fire quite far away and be off in an instant. I have sometimes wondered if such wild robins might be immigrants from the Continent, where by all accounts they are less tame than in England.

Robins are pugnacious, and their duels are not unfrequently to the death. I have seen a robin pursue a sparrow and even fly straight at a great-tit and knock it off the food-stand, but I have noticed that generally a robin makes way for a sparrow, and seldom stands up to a tit of any kind, not even a marsh or a coal-tit, birds hardly half its size. I remember one, however, in the winter of 1900-01 who indiscriminately attacked all tits on the food-stand. He was very friendly with me, and used to watch as I filled the receptacles, when he would come close up and wait for a bit to be thrown to him, and often as he saw me coming he would sit on a corner of the porch roof and warble a little song of welcome. Another year (1901-02) two, sometimes three, and occasionally four, robins would be there together almost under my feet and ready to pick up anything I threw them. Very unlike most robins, they seemed on perfectly good terms with one another.

In November, 1905, a robin used to come into the house through the open windows and make himself quite at home; he would sometimes sit and sing on the bannisters in the hall.

I saw a very tame robin at Budworth in 1904. I was in the garden with the lady to whom it belonged when the bird flew on to her hand, and he used to come into the drawing-room without any hesitation and take his place at afternoon tea.

In 1910 a pair of robins built in the pulpit desk of Oughtrington Church near here, and hatched out four young ones. A friend who went to service one Sunday evening in June saw a robin flying about and singing until the sermon began, but then it took up a position on the back of a seat near the pulpit and looked up at the preacher, quite silent and apparently listening.

One of the prettiest little episodes of bird-life is the delicate attention bestowed by a robin on the chosen partner of his joys and cares that I have several times witnessed during April and May. Whilst she remained watching and waiting on the ground below, he would fly up to the food-stand and secure a morsel which, with a tender grace, he presented to her. The gallant devotion so plainly expressed by the one and the caressing, coquetting airs of the other were most amusing. I have seen, too, about the same time of the year, one robin feeding another with flies picked from the grass and the lower boughs of a deadara tree. The robin that was being fed did not attempt to pick up anything for itself, but sat there on the grass quivering its wings and opening its mouth like a nestling.

Robins often catch flies in the air, flying up from the ground after them, and I have seen one dart off from the branch of a tree, capture a passing fly and return again to the same perch, for all the world like a flycatcher.

One showery day in spring I saw a robin on the food-stand washing itself in the rain, spreading out its wings, shaking its feathers, bobbing and ducking about as though it had been in a bath, and I have noticed one washing in wet leaves and drinking from the tips of leaves.

Greater whitethroats are as common in this garden and neighbourhood as in most places. One that had its nest by the old river bank used to come and scold whenever I went near, and never ceased until I left. Such a proceeding looks like a case of instinct playing a bird false, and serving only to draw attention to what it is wished to conceal.

Lesser whitethroats come to us every year, and may be said to be fairly common in the village. They are always shy and restless and more frequently heard than seen.

There was a lesser whitethroat's nest one year (1898) in a holly bush, in which all five young ones used to be, whenever I looked at them, apparently sleepy, with their heads shoved up over the side of the nest. They never opened their mouths when we went near, and yet often as I watched I never saw the parents feed them.

Blackcaps are not uncommon within easy reach of us, but only twice have I seen one actually in the garden. The first time the unusual sound of its wonderfully clear note attracted my attention was in July, 1899. The bird stayed here then for several days, singing occasionally all the while. The second time a blackcap came was in May, 1903. It was in the garden for about ten days, and I hoped it might be going to nest here, especially as one day I thought I saw a pair.

I noticed a difference in habits between the July bird and the one that came in May. In July, when the joys and cares of family life were over, there was more deliberation and less shyness. I was able to watch the bird easily and for a long time together. In May he was restless and very wary, and it was with difficulty I could get a glimpse of him. He was always on the move, hunting about in the tops of the trees, and, I thought, singing in competition with the willow-wrens.

The blackcap is often placed next to the nightingale as a songster, but there is a very wide interval between them. The most inattentive listener can hardly fail to notice a nightingale's song, but people who are not accustomed to distinguish the different notes of birds are often quite unaware of the presence of a singing blackcap, as the tone of his song mingles with the general chorus.

Golden-crested wrens are not uncommon in winter, but I have never found a nest here. I notice them most often in October and November, as they are hunting in and out the yews and Scotch firs, sometimes a large party, sometimes only a single pair.

One June day I was sitting in a cousin's garden in Wales, when out of an arbor-vitæ close by appeared a dilapidated-looking gold-crest, which set to work violently and persistently to abuse me. Herein, I think, like the whitethroat mentioned before, it displayed either a perversion of instinct or a want of sense. If it had only kept quiet I should not have thought of a nest, but it told me so plainly that it had one in that very tree that I looked as a matter of course and found it, packed with fully-fledged young ones.

Chiffchaffs never stay with us, though they are to be found only a few miles away, but I sometimes see them and hear their well-known note in spring and autumn for a day or two.

Willow-warblers abound ("Peggy whitethroat" is the Cheshire name), and it is a delight to catch for the first time each spring their lovely little song, of which, unlike the wearisome iteration of the chiffchaff, one never tires. The American naturalist, John Burroughs, describes the willow-warbler's strain as the most melodious he heard in England, and the only one exhibiting the best qualities of American songsters. He adds: "It is too fine for the ordinary English ear!" As if on a visit of a few weeks to a strange country he could possibly know what most English people either thought or liked!

Willow-wrens as a rule keep pretty high up in the trees, but one sometimes sees them on the grass picking up flies or flying up after them in the air. Later on in summer they hunt for insects in the kitchen garden, and are often to be seen running up and down the pea-sticks.

Though silent in July, they sing again after the middle of August. I have known a willow-wren's nest here in the middle of a roughish piece of ground that was continually walked over, about as unprotected position as you could wish, and yet the young were successfully reared. I have seen a willow-wren attack and drive away a perfectly inoffensive marsh-tit that happened to alight near it on the grass.

The wood-wren, with its "sibilous shivering note," I have heard at Budworth, a few miles away, but never in this garden or immediate neighbourhood.

The garden-warbler, too, is quite a stranger, and I have never recognised it in these parts at all. In May, 1900, I saw and heard one for several days in a garden in North Wales, where it is generally supposed to be unknown.

Sedge-warblers sing incessantly when first they come, but after they have been here for a little while are much less frequently heard. They usually are hidden in the depths of a bush when singing, but I have seen one pouring out its impetuous song mounted on a telephone wire in the open, 20 feet from the ground, and another that sang as it was flying. For several years a sedge-warbler has begun to sing again here in July, not having been heard for some weeks previously. In 1907, for example, from July 24th to August 2nd, he could, without much exaggeration, be said to have sung all day and all night. I heard him at seven in the morning when I got up and at twelve at night when I went to bed, and I have a note of much the same thing in 1910, about the same date. The bird that year chose as his special platform the lower branches of a sycamore, and would every now and then fly off into the air singing all the while at the very top of his voice, and then return to the tree to sing again.

Hedgesparrows are common enough all the year round, and are great favourites of mine. They are elegant birds in their modest way, they are unobtrusive and useful, and their song, if not brilliant, is pleasant, and like that of the wren and the robin, it helps to cheer the dull winter months when the more famous warblers are away enjoying the warmth of some sunny southern country.

There is no month in the year in which at one time or another I have not heard the hedge-sparrow's song, but March is the time of all others to hear it, then it seems impossible to get away from it at any hour of the day.

Hedgesparrows creep about in a mouse-like fashion peculiar to themselves, with a series of little running jumps, and the continual shuffling or flipping movement of their wings is very noticeable.

They will take their share of the fowls' food with other birds, and will come all round the food-stand and pick up the minutest morsels of something on the ground, but (except in the case of a bird in the cold weather of January, 1902), I have never seen one make an attempt to get at the food on the stand itself.

Sometimes on first turning out on a dark winter's morning, between seven and eight, hedgesparrows will be squatting on the path, and will almost let you walk over them before they get out of your way.

V.

TITS AND WRENS.

Only once, in August, 1904, have I caught sight of a party of long-tailed tits in the garden, but a friend who lived hardly a mile away used to tell me that little parties of eight or nine might be seen flying through his orchard nearly every winter. I think he said they called them "churns," or something that sounded like that.