Part 7

The eggs generally number five or six, of a pale greenish-blue, occasionally spotted on the larger end with rusty red.

This species practises a short and somewhat pretty, but not very loud, song, which is enhanced in value by the weird solitude of the vocalist’s surroundings. It is frequently uttered whilst the bird is on the wing going through aërial antics, often highly suggestive of dementia.

The call note of the species may be imitated by beating two pebbles together, and sounds like _chick, chack, chack_.

=THE STONECHAT.=

This very conspicuous and familiar little bird measures just over five inches in length. Its head, nape, throat, back, wings, and tail are black, many of the feathers being edged with rusty brown. On the sides of the neck, wings, and at the base of the tail are large patches of white. Breast dark rust colour, under parts much lighter. Its unlikeness to any other British bird, and habit of perching on the topmost sprays of gorse, juniper, and bramble bushes, render it perfectly easy to observe and identify. The female differs somewhat, being dull brown with buff edgings to the feathers on her upper parts, and having the chin buff, sides of the neck brownish-white, and breast and under parts duller.

This species does not live, as its name might be taken to imply, in stony wildernesses, but upon furze-clad commons and uncultivated land where juniper, brambles, and other kinds of tangled vegetation grow. The nest is built upon or near the ground, and is generally well concealed. It consists of rootlets, moss, and dry grass, with an inner lining of hair, feathers, and occasionally pieces of wool. I have often seen it with very little else than fine blades of dead grass.

The eggs number from four to six, and on rare occasions even seven have been found. They are of a pale bluish-green ground colour, closely spotted round the larger end with reddish-brown. Sometimes the spots are entirely absent.

The Stonechat, although subject to local movement, stays with us all the year round. Its soft, low song, although of no great length or importance, is sweet and pleasing, and sometimes contains imitations of other birds’ notes. It is delivered both whilst the singer is at rest and hovering in the air. The male helps the female to feed the young ones, and in the case of the chicks hatched from the eggs figured on the previous page he had the whole of the domestic work to do because his mate disappeared altogether a few days after the young ones had been hatched.

The call note resembles the sound made by striking two small pebbles together in the hand, hence its name of Stonechat. It has been written down as _u-tic, u-tic_. After the young are hatched it changes somewhat and sounds like _chuck, chuck_.

=THE WHINCHAT.=

The Whinchat arrives in this country during April, and takes its departure again in September and October. It is about five inches and a quarter in length, and has the crown of the head and upper parts generally of a dusky-brown colour, the feathers being edged with sandy buff. The wings are marked with a large white spot. Upper half of tail white, lower half dark brown edged with sandy buff. A broad white stripe runs from the base of the bill over the eye. Chin is white, throat and breast are light chestnut, under parts pale buff. In the female the white line over the eye and the spot upon the wing are less conspicuous, and the colour of her under parts is less distinctive.

This species, although somewhat local, is met with nearly all over the British Isles. It is partial to heaths and commons, pastures, and meadows, where it makes its nest on or near the ground in thick tangled grass, heather, and at the bottom of small gorse bushes. The structure is formed of dead grass and moss with an inner lining of fine, dry grass and sometimes horsehair. The eggs number from four to six, of a greenish-blue ground colour, sometimes spotted on the larger end with reddish-brown.

The song is low, but sweet, and is delivered somewhat hurriedly, both whilst the melodist is perched and upon the wing. The call note sounds like _u-tack_.

=THE SONG THRUSH.=

“The thrush, a spendthrift of his powers, Enrapturing heaven and earth.” MONTGOMERY.

There is, luckily, no need for me to enter into a minute description of the appearance of this well-known and greatly beloved carol singer, which is called a Song Thrush in the South, a Throstle in the North of England, and a Mavis in Scotland. It breeds commonly throughout the British Islands wherever there is any kind of cover in the shape of trees, shrubs, or bushes to give it shelter. Some people think that the Song Thrush resides with us all the year round, but this is only partially true. I know many high, bleak parts of the country where it is never seen during the depth of winter, and, as a matter of fact, those that stay with us in the lower and more sheltered regions are only a fraction of the total number bred in our country.

The nest of the Song Thrush is built in evergreens, hedgerows, bushes, ivy growing against walls and trees, holes in stone walls, on ledges of rock, on beams in sheds, and occasionally, though not as often as that of the Blackbird, absolutely on the ground. It is quite unlike that of any other British bird in its construction, being made of twigs, coarse dead grass, moss, and clay or mud outside, with an inner lining of clay, mud, or cow-dung studded with bits of rotten wood. In some districts where decayed wood is difficult to procure, it is dispensed with altogether, and during very droughty summers I have found several nests occupied by eggs without a vestige of a hard lining. They were similar to those of the Blackbird, only not so neatly lined with fine dead grass. The mud lining is generally allowed to dry hard before the bird commences to lay.

The eggs, numbering from four to six, are of a beautiful deep greenish-blue colour spotted with black. I have on several occasions met with unmarked specimens.

As a melodist the Throstle ranks very high. Many people consider that it comes next to the Nightingale, for which it is often mistaken, when singing very late in the evening, by people who can claim no great acquaintance with the superb notes of Sweet Philomel.

Mr. Swaysland, of Brighton, who has had a great deal of experience amongst feathered musicians, says that the song of the Mavis is “clear, yet full of mellowness--now pealing out a phrase of wild bluff heartiness, and anon with long-drawn notes tinged with exquisite pathos--striking a responsive chord in the heart of every hearer.”

I have heard its song during every month of the year excepting August, when the bird experiences the depression of its annual moult.

During a fine April morning every wood and spinny in the part of Surrey where I reside rings with the melodious notes of the Throstle, and two or three seasons ago we had a specimen that habitually sang from the top of a cabbage in a field almost surrounded by tall trees. I have heard it sing on the ground between bouts of fighting, on the wing, and from a housetop, where a Starling might have been expected to hold forth. It has been timed, and in one instance at least has been found to sing sixteen hours in a single day, and under favourable circumstances some of its notes may be heard half a mile away.

If not the most imitative of all British birds, it comes very close to the holding of that distinction, and can not only mimic some notes as well as their owners can deliver them, but actually improve upon their volume and sweetness. The Ringed Plover and the French Partridge are two examples. I have heard the Throstle reproduce the notes of the following species: Common Curlew, Whimbrel, Dunlin, Peewit, Golden Plover, Common Tern, Redshank, Ringed Plover, French Partridge, and Common Sparrow, besides those of several others.

Thrushes vary not only individually as musicians, but in different parts of the country, I am persuaded. Some of the finest singers I have heard have been in Surrey, Cheshire, and Aberdeenshire.

The poets have given this species a good deal of deserved attention on account of the excellence of its song, and everyone who has had any experience whatever of the country and its wild life in springtime will at once recognise the truth and beauty of the following lines:

“Through the hazels thick espy The hatching throstle’s shining eye.”

The call and alarm notes of the Song Thrush are very difficult to convey by the characters of the alphabet. The former sounds something like _sik, sik sik, sik, siki, tsak, tsak_, and the latter _quep_ and _wich-it-tit_. The song has been rendered by the words, “Go-it, go-it, stick-to-it, stick-to-it, you’ll-do-it, you’ll-do-it,” but by far the best representation is that of the great Scottish naturalist, Macgillivray, which I have quoted at length in “Our Bird Friends.”

Throstles live principally upon worms, grubs, and snails, and they have a habit of taking the last-named to some favourite stone, where they hammer the shell until it is sufficiently fractured to enable them to extract the luscious morsel inside. These stones are known as “Thrushes’ Anvils.” Occasionally when they find a snail with a house upon its back too hard and strong to be broken in this way, they carry it to some height in the air and drop it on a flag or other hard substance. The shell is thus fractured, and the sensible captor descends and devours its prey. The bird also takes its share of fruit, and without any consideration for the good it does during the greater part of the year, is ruthlessly slain by gardeners, who might, in the great majority of instances, use netting instead of shot to the advantage of both fruit trees and birds.

When I hear a garden-loving neighbour’s gun going off, I frequently think of the poet’s compassionate appeal:

“Scare, if ye will, his timid wing away, But oh, let not the leaden viewless shower, Vollied from flashing tube, arrest his flight, And fill his tuneful, gasping bill with blood.”

The members of this species that stay with us throughout the winter months, when not regaling our ears with their versatile songs, amuse even the most casual observers by their quaint ways of listening for and catching worms on lawn and meadow during open weather. They also well repay feeding with soaked dog-biscuits and other edible trifles during severe weather, when it is almost impossible for them to secure even the shortest supply of natural food. They are able to foretell coming changes in the weather far earlier than human beings, and frequently sing in anticipation of a thaw.

=THE YELLOW HAMMER.=

Who does not know this almost universally distributed bird in our country, with its dress of almost canary-like yellow, streaked with brown, and short though oft-repeated song? On furze-clad commons, along cultivated hedgerows, and on railway embankments close to busy London town, and in far-away parts of the country alike, it may be heard morning, noon, and night persistently going over its familiar notes, which always seem to me to accord best with the drowsiness of a hot summer’s day. Indeed, I must confess that at such times its reiteration has sent me to sleep.

It has been variously represented by the characters of the alphabet, as the following examples will show: _tic-tic-tic-e-ereze, te, te, te, te, te, te, twyee_; _chick, chick, churr_; _chit-chit-chierre-r-r_. By far the most popular rendering of it in England, however, is the somewhat hackneyed phrase, “A little bit of bread and no cheese.” In Scotland it becomes, “Deil, deil, deil tak ye,” a supposed imprecation upon boys who steal its eggs.

There is also a curious legend in the North to the effect that Satan supplies the bird with half a drop of his blood every morning wherewith to mark its eggs with the greatly varied scribbling lines that appear upon them.

The song, although more musical than that of the Corn Bunting, is considered by many people to be a monotonous performance. The poet Grahame was evidently aware of this when he wrote the lines:

“Even in a bird the simplest notes have charms For me: I even love the yellow hammer’s song.”

The call note of this species, when disturbed, is a _trit, trit, trit_, and on the wing _tisit_.

It may always be distinguished with certainty from its much rarer relative, the Cirl Bunting, by the fact that it has no black upon its chin.

The female Yellow Hammer is a trifle smaller than her mate, is much less yellow, and the markings on her head are darker. Both sexes take a share in the work of incubation.

The nest is built in hedge banks, at the foot of light open bushes, under brambles, and sometimes even in gorse bushes and thick evergreen hedges at a considerable height from the ground. It is composed of dry grass, rootlets, and moss on the outside, with an inner lining of fine, dead grass and horsehair.

The eggs, numbering from four to six, are of a dingy white ground colour, tinged with purple, streaked, spotted, and blotched with dark purplish-brown. The streaks or scribblings generally end in a spot, and, on account of their similarity to the marks made by a pen, the bird is known in many parts of the country as the “Writing Lark.”

This species, although commencing to breed in April, sometimes has eggs as late even as September.

=THE STARLING.=

It is quite unnecessary for me to describe the appearance of the Starling, for the species is so common, sociable, and unlike every other feathered friend in this country that confusion is almost impossible.

I love the brave, bustling bird, for when it has any work to do it does not go dawdling along like a lazy boy crawling halfheartedly to school, but rushes about as if the welfare of the whole universe depended upon its individual exertions.

It is a lively singer, with almost unrivalled powers of imitation, and has, I must confess, completely deceived me on several occasions. One fine spring morning, whilst on my way to a railway station in the north of London, I heard, to my surprise, the familiar notes of a Golden Plover, and immediately began to examine the heavens for a member of that species flying overhead. To my surprise, I discovered that the sounds were coming from a Starling delightedly flapping its wings on a chimney-pot not far away. On another occasion, whilst hunting for a much-desired Sandpiper’s nest on the shores of a small loch in the Outer Hebrides, I said to my brother, “Hark! I hear one calling!” But that Sandpiper proved to be a Starling standing on a rock not far off imitating to perfection the soft call notes of the little wader. I have heard different members of this species mimicking the cries and call notes of the Curlew, Whimbrel, Lapwing, Common Partridge, Redshank, Ringed Plover, House Sparrow, and other small birds.

Tame Starlings have been taught to imitate the human voice so well that one has been said to repeat the Lord’s Prayer from beginning to end, and Pliny, the historian, mentions one that was able to speak in both Greek and Latin.

The harsh alarm cry of the species sounds something like the word _spate, spate_.

Although sometimes guilty, especially during very dry seasons, of taking cherries and other fruit, the damage wrought in this way is as nothing compared with the vast amount of good done by this species in the destruction of insects injurious to growing crops. It is an amusing sight to watch a flock hurrying and scurrying across a field, the hindmost members continually flying over the foremost and then running in breathless haste looking eagerly this way and that, probing every likely and unlikely place for some lurking grub, as if life did not contain one moment to be wasted.

They alight on the backs of sheep and cattle in order to destroy troublesome parasites, and at certain seasons of the year may be seen dexterously hawking winged insects over houses and tree-tops.

Starlings have greatly increased in numbers during the last forty years in our islands, and there is no season of the year when flocks, great or small, cannot be seen. Late breeders keep together until far on in May, and the broods of those that commenced housekeeping operations early in April flock together directly they meet each other in the fields. Thus I have known the same nesting hole occupied twice in one season, a fact which has given rise to the belief entertained by some people that the species is double-brooded.

When flocked, these birds have favourite roosting places, to which they resort in tens of thousands every night with the utmost regularity. Sometimes they select a reed bed to sleep in, and do great damage by too many birds alighting on the same stems and breaking them down. Before finally settling for the night, they perform a great number of wonderful aërial evolutions, especially during fine weather. Whilst sitting in one black mass on every available branch and bough, producing an indescribable din by all chissicking and chattering to each other at the same time, they will suddenly become quite silent, and leaping into the air with a noise just like that of a truck-load of small coals being shot into the hold of a steamer, mount to a considerable height, and commence to wheel and turn as if by some magically communicated command.

At one moment they look like a thick black cloud, and at another like a long trail of grey smoke. Every turn and twist, opening and closing of the whole flock, is performed with a grace and precision of movement which is wonderful to behold.

Starlings nest in holes in trees, rocks, and old ruins; under the roofs of houses, in the thatch of ricks and outbuildings, and sometimes under large stones on steep hillsides. I have also known them breed amongst sticks forming the base of an Osprey’s eyrie which was occupied by young ones. A year or two ago I found an open-topped nest containing chicks in an evergreen, where a Blackbird or Thrush might have been expected to breed. Green Woodpeckers are constantly turned out of their laboriously dug holes by members of this species in search of suitable nesting quarters.

The nest is a loosely-put-together structure composed of straws, rootlets, and bits of moss, with a lining of hair, feathers, and occasionally a lock of wool. I have often found nests, however, with no kind of lining at all except straws.

The eggs number from four to six, of a uniform pale blue colour. This species has a curious habit of dropping its eggs about on lawns and in fields during the early part of the breeding season.

Young Starlings, in their first coats of feathers, are greyish-brown, and lack entirely the beautiful purple and steel-blue sheen which gives their parents such a handsome appearance when the sun is shining upon them.

=THE CHAFFINCH.=

Youthful students of ornithology are frequently at a loss to understand why Linnæus, the great Swedish naturalist, gave this bird the somewhat odd scientific name of _cœlebs_, signifying bachelor. He did so because he noticed that in his own country the females left the males behind in winter and migrated south in search of more hospitable climes.

In Scotland and the North of England I have frequently observed the same kind of thing happen, and especially during severe winters, not a female to be seen for weeks together, and the males all congregated in little flocks. In the South and West of England, however, both sexes remain together, as a rule, and, associating with their relatives, the Common Sparrows, hunt farmyards and gardens for corn, seeds, and any other unconsidered trifles they may chance to pick up.

However gloomy the conditions of existence may be, the brave Chaffinch is always sprightly, vigorous, and cheerful, a characteristic which may be plainly seen in our illustration of birds feeding on the snow.

The call note of the species is a loud, ringing _spink, spink_, which is also used as an alarm cry. In the spring the male utters in addition a very sweet one sounding something like _tu-wheet, tu-wheet_. During flight the bird makes use of another note, which is difficult to render by the characters of the alphabet, but may, perhaps, be best represented by the letters _tuke_.

The song is repeated thousands of times per day in the early part of the breeding season. It is a very sprightly performance, like a merry old English catch, _tol-de-rol, lol, chickweedo_, which has been very aptly likened to the words, “Will you, will you kiss me, dear?” Some people consider it a monotonous affair, but in spite of the fact that I have heard it repeated twenty-one times in four minutes it is always to me, “A full, clear, sprightly ringing ditty.” It varies greatly in individuals, and although London bird-catchers consider an Essex Chaffinch superior to all others as a singer, I prefer to listen to some members of the species I have heard cheering the dark solitude of great Highland pine forests.

German workmen are great Chaffinch fanciers. One has been known to exchange a cow for a clever vocalist of this species, and another to live upon bread-and-water until he had saved the high price of a prime favourite.

It is, I must confess, always a saddening experience for me to hear this little songster’s notes ringing clear and sweet from the interior of a wee prison house tied up in a black cloth, and carried along some dismal street beneath the arm of a costermonger. However, it is only fair to add that these men are, as a rule, devoted to their pets, and treat them with the utmost kindness. A great authority upon the subject says that if well treated a Chaffinch will live in confinement for twenty years. It has also been asserted as a curious fact that if an adult male Chaffinch is caught before Whitsuntide he will sing in a cage, but if he should be made a prisoner after this date he will die of grief at being parted from his mate and young ones.

Chaffinches pair towards the end of February and throughout March, although flocks of “bachelors” may occasionally be seen as late as the first week in May, and commence building operations, as a rule, about the middle of April. They build deep, cup-shaped, and wonderfully neat little nests of moss, wool, lichens, and cobwebs, beautifully felted together and securely fixed in the forks of small trees in orchards, hedgerows, and woods. It is generally adorned on the outside with bits of green moss or grey lichens that will render it similar in appearance to its surroundings, and thus help it to escape detection.

The eggs number from four to six, but clutches of five are the general rule, and are pale greenish-blue in ground colour, clouded with faint reddish-brown and spotted and streaked with dull purplish-brown of various shades.