Bird Warnings
Prominent among the birds that mob the barn-owl when he flies forth by day are jays and blackbirds. They are the noisiest, and to the gamekeeper the most useful of all the sentinels of the wood. A sudden hubbub from blackbirds and jays always has a meaning. If the birds are flying high it is a sign that the barn-owl is on the move—if low, the gamekeeper's thoughts fly to a poaching cat. A cat can hardly move a yard in a wood without a blackbird crying the alarm. His excited notes, suggesting the sound of the words "Flint, flint," are taken up by all the blackbirds within call, and soon the cat is besieged by a throng, and so closely that the keeper can follow pussy's direction, though she remains unseen. And the blackbirds give warning of the movements of stoats and weasels. The wren, too, is a lively and vigilant sentinel, and from its movements one may determine within a yard where the stoat is lurking. Jays, by their screams, give prompt warning that a fox is on the prowl, and no human trespasser, in pursuit of game or otherwise, can hope to escape their attentions. A lively reception awaits the fox moving in a wood by day, and his progress may be marked through the length of a big covert by the agitated way in which the cock pheasants mount the trees, with warning "cock-up." In the open the peewits will gather to swoop and swerve in anger and defiance above the fox's head.
