Cuckoo Martin Thrush
Skylark Woodpecker Blackbird
Snipe Gull Tit
Wild duck Tern Finch
Plover Owl Woodcock
Wild goose Hawk Curlew
Robin Falcon Kingfisher
Starling Moorhen
A good deal of natural history can even be studied by keeping birds in your houses, or watching them in your neighbourhood, especially if you feed them daily in winter. It is interesting to note, for instance, their different ways of singing, how some sing to make love to the hen birds, while others, like the barndoor cock, crow or sing to challenge another to fight. A herring gull makes an awful ass of himself, when he tries to sing and to show himself off to the ladies, and an old crow is not much better. Then it is interesting to watch how the young birds hatch out; some appear naked with no feathers and their eyes shut and their mouths open. Others, with fluffy kind of feathers all over them, are full of life and energy. Young moorhens, for instance, swim as soon as they come out of the egg; young chickens start running about and hunting flies within a very few minutes; while a young sparrow is useless for days, and has to be fed and coddled by his parents.
There are over forty different kinds of birds which visit England from abroad, especially from India and Africa, at certain times of the year, chiefly in April, such as the sand martin, swallow, house martin, nightingale, hobby falcon, cuckoo, corncrake, and swift.