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

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

But every day adds some new tint. There is less and less of the yellowish tone which last year’s withered stalks give even in spring to the steppes; the garment already so bright continues to gain in freshness and brightness. After a few weeks, the steppe-land lies like a gay carpet in which all tints show distinctly, from dark green to bright yellow-green, the predominant gray-green of the wormwoods being relieved by the deeper and brighter tones of more prominent herbs and dwarf-shrubs. The dwarf-almond, which, alone or in association with the pea-tree and the honeysuckle, covers broad stretches of low ground, is now, along with its above-mentioned associates, in all its glory. Its twigs are literally covered all over with blossom; the whole effect is a shimmer of peach-red, in lively contrast to the green of the grass and herbage, to the bloom of the pea-trees, and even to the delicate rose-red or reddish-white of the woodbine. In suitable places the woodbine forms quite a thicket, and, when in full bloom, seems to make of all surrounding colour but a groundwork on which to display its own brilliancy. Various, and to me unknown, shrubs and herbs give high and low tones to the picture, and the leaves of others, which wither as rapidly as they unfold, become spots of yellow-green and gold. Seen from a distance, all the colours do indeed merge into an almost uniform gray-green; but near at hand each colour tells, and one sees the countless individual flowers which have now opened, sees them singly everywhere, but also massed together in more favourable spots, where they make the shades of the bushes glorious. Amid the infinite variety of bulbous plants there are exquisite vetches; among many that are unfamiliar there are old friends well known in our flower-gardens; more and more does the feeling of enchantment grow on one, until at last it seems as if one had wandered into an unending, uncared-for garden of flowers.

With the spring and the flowers the animal life of the steppes appears also to awaken. Even before the last traces of winter are gone, the migratory birds, which fled in autumn, have returned, and when the spring has begun in earnest the winter sleepers open the doors of the burrows within which they have slumbered in death-like trance through all the evil days. As the migratory birds rejoin the residents, so the sleepers come forth and join those mammals which are either careless of winter or know how to survive it at least awake. At the same time the insects celebrate their Easter, hastening from their hidden shelters or accomplishing the last phase of their metamorphosis; and now, too, the newts and frogs, lizards and snakes leave their winter quarters to enjoy in the spring sunshine the warmth indispensable to their activity and full life, and to dream of the summer which will bring them an apathetic happiness.

The steppe now becomes full of life. Not that the animal life is of many types, but it is abundant and everywhere distributed. The same forms are met with everywhere, and missed nowhere. There are here no hosts of mammals comparable to the herds of antelopes on the steppes of Central Africa, nor to the troops of zebras and quaggas[17] in the South African karoo, nor to the immeasurable trains of buffaloes on the North American prairies;[18] nor are the birds of the steppes so numerous as those on the continental shores or on single islands, or on the African steppes, or in equatorial forests. But both birds and mammals enter into the composition of a steppe landscape; they help to form and complete the peculiarity of this region; in short, the steppes also have their characteristic fauna.

The places at which the animals chiefly congregate are the lakes and pools, rivers and brooks. Before the existence of a lake is revealed by the periodically or permanently flooded reed-forests surrounding it, hundreds and thousands of marsh-birds and swimmers have told the practised observer of the still invisible sheet of water. In manifoldly varied flight, fishing-gulls, common gulls, and herring-gulls sweep and glide over its surface; more rapidly and less steadily do the terns pursue the chase over the reeds and the pools which these inclose; in mid-air the screaming eagles circle; ducks, geese, and swans fly from one part of the lake to another; kites hover over the reeds; even sea-eagles and pelicans now and then show face. As to the actual inhabitants of these lakes, as to the number of species and individuals, one can only surmise until one has stationed oneself on the banks, or penetrated into the thicket of reeds. In the salt-steppe, as is readily intelligible, the animal life is sparser. With hasty flight most of the water-birds pass over the inhospitable, salt-covered shores, as they wend from lake to lake; only the black-headed gulls and fishing-gulls are willing to rest for a time by the not wholly dry, but shallow, briny basins; only the sheldrake fishes there in company with the charming avocet, who seeks out just these very places, and, living in pairs or small companies, spends his days stirring up the salt water, swinging his delicate head with upturned bill from side to side indefatigably. Of other birds I only saw a few, a yellow or white wagtail, a lapwing, a plover; the rest seem to avoid the uninviting desolateness of these brine pools, all the more that infinitely more promising swamps and pools are to be found quite near them. About the lake itself abundant food seems to be promised to all comers. Thus not only do thousands of marsh and water birds settle on its surface, but even the little songsters and passerine birds, unprovided for by the dry steppes, come hither. Not the fishers alone, but other hungry birds of prey find here their daily bread. The steppe-lakes cannot indeed be compared with those of North Africa, where, during winter, the feathered tribes of three-quarters of the globe have their great rendezvous, nor with the equatorial water-basins, which are thronged by hundreds of thousands of birds at every season, nor even with the marsh-lands of the Danube, where, all through the summer, countless children of the air find rest; in proportion to the extent of water in the steppes the number of winged settlers may seem small, but the bird-fauna is really very considerable, and the lakes of the steppes have also a certain uniqueness in regard to the nesting-places chosen by the birds.

Fig. 13.—Lake Scene and Water-fowl in an Asiatic Steppe.

Here every creature has its home among the reeds: the wolf and the boar, the eagle and the wild-goose, the kite and the swan, the raven and the mallard, the gadwall or teal, the thrush and the white-throat, the reed-tit and the sparrow, the reed-bunting and the ortolan, the willow wren and the blue-throated warbler, the lesser kestrel and the red-footed falcon, the crane and the lapwing, the shrike and the snipe, the starling, the yellow and white wagtails, the quail and the kingfisher, the great white heron and the spoonbill, the cormorant and the pelican. The reed-thickets afford home and shelter to all; they take the place of woods in affording hiding and security; in their retreats the secrets of love are told, and the joys of family life are expressed, exuberant rejoicings are uttered, and the tenderest cares are fulfilled; they are the cradles and the schools of the young.

Of the mammals which congregate among the reeds one usually sees only the tracks, provided, of course, that one does not resort to forceful measures and ransack the thicket with dogs. Of the flitting bird-life, however, in its general features at least, the practised eye of the naturalist may at any time obtain a lively picture.

When we leave the dry steppes and approach a lake, the widely-distributed larks disappear, and their place is taken by the plovers, whose plaintive cries fall mournfully on the ear. One of them may be seen running by fits and starts along the ground, with the characteristic industry of its race, stopping here and there to pick up some minute booty, and then running off again as swiftly as ever. Before we reach the reeds we see the black-headed gulls, probably also the common gulls, and, in favourable circumstances, even a great black-backed gull. The first fly far into the steppes to seek out the grazing herds, and are equally decorative whether they sweep gracefully over and around them in thick crowds, catching in their flight the insects which the grazing beasts have disturbed, or whether they run behind the herd like white pigeons seeking their food in the fields. Near the reeds we also see one or other of the wild-geese—a male who for a short time has left his mate sitting upon the eggs, to graze, while it is still possible, on the grassy patches near the reed-thicket. Soon, however, parental cares, in which all ganders share, will recall him to the recesses of the willows close by the lake, to the nook where the careful parents have their gray-greenish-yellow goslings well hidden. Over all the flooded shallows there is a more active life. On the margins of the pools small littoral birds have their well-chosen fighting-grounds. Fighting-ruffs,[19] now arrayed in their gayest dress, meet there in combat; with depressed head each directs his beak like a couched lance against the bright neck-collar which serves his foe for shield. The combatants stand in most defiant attitudes, irresistibly amusing to us; for a moment they look at one another with their sharp eyes and then make a rush, each making a thrust, and at the same time receiving one on his feathery shield. But none of the heroes is in any way injured, and none allows the duelling to interfere with less exciting business; for if, during the onslaught, one see a fly just settling on a stem, he does not allow it to escape him, and his opponent is equally attentive to the swimming beetle darting about on the surface of a small pool; hastily they run, one here and the other there, seize the booty which they spied, and return refreshed to the fray. Meantime, however, other combatants have taken the field, and the fight seems as if it would never have an end. But suddenly a marsh-harrier comes swooping along, and the heroes hastily quit the field; they rise together in close-packed flight, and hurry to another pond, there to repeat the same old game. The dreaded harrier is the terror of all the other birds of the lake. At his approach the weaker ducks rise noisily, and, a moment later, their stronger relatives, more disturbed by the ducks than by the bird of prey, rise impetuously, and with whizzing beating of wings, circle several times over the lake and sink again in detachments. With trilling call the redshanks also rise, and with them the snipe, whose cry, though tuneless, is audible from afar. The robber sweeps past all too near, but both redshank and snipe forget his menace as soon as they reach a safe height; they seem to feel only the golden spring-tide and the joy of love which now dominates them. For the redshank sinks suddenly to the water far beneath, flutters, and hovers with his wings hanging downwards and forwards, rises again with insistent calls and sinks once more, until a response from his mate near by invites him to cease from his love-play and to hasten to her. So is it also with the snipe, who, after he has ended his zigzag flight, and ascended to twice the height of a tower, lets himself fall suddenly. In the precipitous descent he broadens out his tail, and opposes the flexible, narrow, pointed lateral feathers to the resisting air, thus giving rise to that bleating noise to which he owes his quaint name of sky-goat.[20] Only a pair of the exceedingly long-legged black-winged stilts, which were pursuing their business in apparently aristocratic isolation from the throng, have remained undisturbed by the marsh-harrier; perhaps they saw the bold black-headed gulls hastening to drive off the disturber of the peace. Moreover, a Montagu’s harrier and a steppe-harrier have united their strength against the marsh-harrier, whom they hate with a bitterness proportionate to his near relationship. Without hesitation the robber makes for the open country, and next minute there is the wonted whistling and warbling, scolding and cackling over the water. Already there is a fresh arrival of visitors, drawn by that curiosity common to all social birds, and also, of course, by the rich table which these lakes afford.

When at length we reach the thicket of reeds the smaller birds become more conspicuous, the larger forms being more effectively concealed. The crane, which breeds on the most inaccessible spots, the great white heron, which fishes on the inner margin of the thicket, the spoonbill, which forages for food on the shallowest stretches among the reeds, all these keep themselves as far as possible in concealment, and of the presence of the bittern in the very heart of the reeds we are aware only by his muffled booming. On the other hand, all the small birds to which I have referred expose themselves to view almost without any wariness, singing and exulting in their loudest notes. The yellow wagtails run about confidently on the meadow-like plots of grass around the outer margin of the thicket; that marvel of prettiness, the bearded titmouse, climbs fearlessly up and down on the reeds, whose tops are graced here by a redbreast and there by a gray shrike. From all sides the cheerful, though but slightly melodious song of the sedge-warblers strikes the ear, and we listen with pleasure to the lay of the black-throated thrush, to the lovely singing of the blue-throat, the wood-wren, and the icterine warbler, and to the call of the cuckoo. On the open pools among the reeds there is sure to be a pair of coots swimming with their young brood, and where the water is deeper there is perchance an eared grebe among the various kinds of ducks. When it draws to evening the red-footed falcon, the lesser kestrel, the starlings and the rose-starlings also seek the thicket for the night, and of chattering and fussing there is no end. Even the spotted eagle, the raven, and the hooded-crow appear as guests for the night, and, on the inner margins at least, the cormorant and the pelican rest from their fishing.