Choice Nesting-Places
It is the keeper's lot to make the best of many a bad job. If he could have his way, all underwood would be chopped and stacked in neat piles by the middle of April, so that his nesting birds might enjoy undisturbed peace in his woods. In olden days, all underwood was cut, worked up, and cleared off the ground by certain fixed dates so that the new shoots of the shorn stumps had full measure of light and air. But the dates are no longer remembered, and the work is carried on into early summer. The birds benefit in some ways. Pheasants find the long rows of felled underwood very attractive as nesting-places, and many pairs of partridges decide to give them a trial. Pheasants and partridges prefer to nest in dead material—it is warmer and drier than greenstuff, does not hold dew or rain, and cannot grow, and so possibly upset the nest. Dry leaves are driven by the wind beneath the rows of wood, so nesting material is plentiful. And there is no dense canopy of leaves to shut out the sun that is so loved by the sitting birds.
