From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

The spectacle of a mixed heronry is fascinating in the highest degree. “There is hardly anything”, writes Baldamus, “more varied, more attractive, more beautiful, than these Hungarian marshes with their bird-life, which is remarkable both for the number of individuals and for their variety of form and colouring. Let any one look at the most conspicuous of these marsh-dwellers in a collection, and then let him endeavour to picture them to himself standing, walking, running, climbing, flying, in short, living, and he will be obliged to admit that such bird-life is marvellously attractive.” This description is correct even if it be applied to the impoverished island of Adony. Much as its once teeming population has dwindled, there are still thousands and thousands of birds. For long stretches of the forest every high tree bears nests, many having twenty or thirty, and all about these is the noisy bustle of sociable bird-life. Upon the nests sit the female rooks, common herons, night-herons, and cormorants, looking out with dark, sulphur-yellow, blood-red, and sea-green eyes upon the intruder who has invaded their sanctuary; sitting and climbing on the topmost boughs of the giant trees, or fluttering, flying, floating above them are black, brown, gray, one-coloured and many-coloured, dull and shimmering bird forms; above these, kites are circling; on the trunks woodpeckers are hanging, hard at work; sleek, gleaming white-throats are seeking their daily bread among the blossom of a pear-tree, finches and willow-wrens among the fresh foliage of the bird-cherry. The beautiful carpet of woodruff which covers the ground in many places is spattered and soiled with the excrement of birds, and disfigured by broken eggs or their shells, and by decomposing fish which have fallen from the nests.

The first shot from the gun of our gracious patron caused an indescribable confusion. The startled herons rose screaming, and the rooks with stupefying croaking; the cormorants, too, forsook their nests with angry screeches. A cloud of birds formed over the forest, drifted hither and thither, up and down, became denser and overshadowed the tree-tops, broke up into groups which sank hesitatingly down towards their forsaken nests, enveloped these completely for a little, and then united again with the main mass. Every single one screamed, croaked, cawed, and screeched in the most ear-piercing fashion; everyone took to flight, but was drawn back again by anxiety for nest and eggs. The whole forest was in an uproar; yet, careless of the terrifying noise, the finch warbled its spring greeting amidst the trees, a woodpecker called joyously, the nightingales poured forth their inspiring melody, and poetic souls revealed themselves even among the thieves and robbers.

Richly laden with booty, we returned, after five hours’ sport, to our comfortable quarters on board ship, and occupied ourselves as we steamed further with the scientific arrangement of our newly-acquired treasures. For hours we travelled through forests such as I have depicted, now and then passing by large or small hamlets, villages, and towns, until the gathering darkness forced us to moor our vessel. In the early dawn of the following morning we reached Apatin. The firing of cannon, music, and joyous acclamation greet the much-loved heir to the throne. People of all sorts throng about the boat; native hunting-assistants, nest-seekers, tree-climbers, and bird-skinners come on board; more than a dozen of the little boats called “Ezikela” are loaded. Then our steamer turns up stream again, to land us in the neighbourhood of a broad arm of the river. Up this we penetrated for the first time into the damp meadow-forests. All the little boats which had joined us in Apatin followed our larger one, like ducklings swimming after a mother duck. To-day the chase is directed solely against the sea eagle which broods so abundantly in these forests that no fewer than five eyries could be found within a radius of a square mile. We separated with the sportsman’s salute, to approach these eyries from different directions.

I was well acquainted with these bold and rapacious, if rather ignoble birds of prey, for I had seen them in Norway and Lapland, in Siberia and in Egypt, but I had never observed them beside their eyries; and the opportunity of doing so was most welcome. As his name implies, the favourite habitat of the sea-eagle is by the sea-coasts, or on the banks of lakes and rivers rich in fish. If winter drives him from his haunts, he migrates as far southwards as is necessary to enable him to pick up a living during the cold months. In Hungary, this eagle is the commonest of all the large birds of prey; he does not forsake the country even in winter, and only makes long expeditions in his earlier years before maturity, as though he wished to try the experiment of living abroad. During spring, therefore, one sees in that district only adult, or what comes to the same thing, full-grown birds capable of reproduction, while in autumn and winter there are, in addition, the young ones which left the nest only a few months before. Then also many wanderers who have not settled down come to enliven the forest-shores of the Danube. As long as the river is not covered with ice, they have no difficulty in finding food; for they hunt in the water not less, perhaps rather more skilfully than on land. They circle over the water until they spy a fish, then throw themselves down upon it like a flash of lightning, dive after it, sometimes disappearing completely beneath the waves, but working their way quickly to the surface again by aid of their powerful wings, carry off their victim, whose scaly armour has been penetrated by their irresistible talons, and devour it at their leisure. As their depredations are not so severely condemned in Hungary as with us, and as they are treated generally with undeserved forbearance, they regularly frequent the neighbourhood of the fishermen’s huts, and sit among the trees close by until the fisherman throws them stale fish or any refuse which they can eat. Like the fishermen, the Hungarian, Servian, and Slav peasants help to provide them with food, for, instead of burying animals which have died, they let them lie exposed in the fields, and leave it to the eagles and the vultures, or to dogs and wolves, to remove the carrion. If a covering of ice protects his usual prey, and no carrion is available, the sea-eagle need not yet starve; for, like the nobler and more courageous golden eagle, he hunts all game which he has a chance of overpowering. He attacks the fox as well as the hare, the hedgehog and the rat, the diver and the wild goose, steals from the mother seal her sucking young, and may even carry his blind rapacity so far as to strike his powerful talons into the back of a dolphin or a sturgeon, by whom he is carried down into the sea and drowned before he can free his claws. Under some circumstances he will even attack human beings. Thus he need hardly ever suffer want; and as he is not systematically hunted, he leads quite an enviable life.

Fig. 81.—Sea-eagle and Nest in a Danube Forest.

Until near the breeding-time, the sea-eagle lives at peace with his fellows; but, as that season approaches, he becomes combative and quarrelsome, in most cases through jealousy. For the sake of mate and eyrie, he wages bitter war with others of his species. An eagle pair, once united, remain so for life, but only if the male is able to protect his mate from the wooing of others, and to defend his own eyrie. A male eagle, which has just reached maturity and is exulting in the consciousness of his strength, casts his eyes longingly upon the mate and eyrie of another eagle, and both are lost to their owner if he allows himself to be vanquished in fight by the intruder. The rightful lord, therefore, fights to the death against everyone who attempts to disturb his marital and domestic happiness. The battle begins high in the air, but is often finished on the ground. With beak and claw, first one, then the other ventures an assault; at length one succeeds in getting a grip of his adversary, whose talons, in return, are promptly fixed in his rival’s body. Like balls of feathers, the two fall to the ground, or into the water, when both let go their hold, but only to renew the attack. When they fight on the ground, the rivals challenge one another like enraged cocks, and blood and feathers left behind show the scene of the battle and bear witness to its deadly seriousness. The female circles above the combatants or watches them from her high perch with seeming indifference, but she never fails to caress the conqueror, whether he be her lawful spouse or the new-comer. Woe to the eagle if he does not succeed in repulsing the intruder! In the eyes of the female, none but the strong deserves the fair.

After successfully repelled attacks and fights of that kind, from which no eagle is exempt, and which are said to be repeated in Hungary every year, the pair, probably long wedded, take possession of the old eyrie, and begin, in February, to repair it. Both birds set to work to collect the necessary material, picking it up from the ground, or from the water, or breaking it off the trees, and carrying it in their talons, often for a long distance, to the nest, to rebuild and improve this as well as an eagle can. As this building up of the old nest takes place every year, it gradually grows to a considerable height, and one can tell from it the age of the birds, and may also guess the probable duration of their wedded life; for the oldest nest contains the oldest pair of eagles. The nest is not always placed among the highest branches of the tree, but is in all cases high above the ground, more or less near the trunk, and always on strong boughs which can bear its heavy and ever-increasing weight. Both upper and lower tiers consist of sticks and twigs laid loosely above and across one another; and many pairs of hedge-sparrows, which approach the mighty birds quite boldly and confidently, find among these twigs cavities suitable for nesting or hiding.

Towards the end of February, or in the beginning of March, the female lays two, or at most three eggs in the shallow nest-cavity, and begins brooding assiduously. The male meantime supplies her with food, not, however, making longer expeditions in search of it than are absolutely necessary, but spending whatever time he can spare from the work of providing for her and himself, sitting, a faithful and attentive guardian, on a tree in the neighbourhood, which serves him at once as perch and sleeping-place. After about four weeks of brooding, the young emerge from the eggs, looking at first like soft balls of wool, from which dark eyes peer forth, and a dark bill and very sharp claws protrude. Even in their earliest youth the little creatures are as pretty as they are self-possessed. Now there is work enough for both father and mother. The two take turns in going forth to seek for prey, and in mounting guard over the little ones; but it is the mother who tends them. The father honestly performs his part in the rearing of the brood; but the mother alone is capable of giving them that care and attention which may be described as nursing. If she were torn from them in the first days of their life, they would perish as surely as young mammals robbed of their suckling mother. With her own breast the eagle-mother protects them from frost and snow; from her own crop she supplies them with warmed, softened, and partly-digested food. The eagle-father does not render such nursing services as these, but if the mother perish when the young are half-grown, he unhesitatingly takes upon himself the task of rearing and feeding them, and often performs it with the most self-sacrificing toil. The young eagles grow rapidly. In the third week of their existence the upper surface of the body is covered with feathers; towards the end of May they are full-grown and fully fledged. Then they leave the nest, to prepare, under the guidance of their parents, for the business of life.

This is a picture, drawn with hasty strokes, of the life of the eagle, which, for the next few days, was the object of our expeditions. No fewer than nineteen inhabited eyries were visited by us with varying success. Now on foot, now in little boats, now jumping and wading, now creeping and gliding, we endeavoured, unseen and unheard, to approach the trees bearing the nests; for hours we crouched expectantly beneath them in huts hastily built with branches, gazing eagerly up at the eagles, which, startled by us or others, were wheeling and circling high in the air, and showing no inclination to return to their nests, but which we knew must return sometime, and would probably fall victims to us. We were able to observe them very accurately and fully, and this eagle-hunt gained, therefore, an indescribable charm for us all.