The Short-eared Owl.
One more bird deserves notice ere we bring our survey of avine life upon the heaths to a conclusion, and that is the Short-eared Owl. This bird is quite cosmopolitan in its choice of a haunt. It is as much a fen or a marsh, a gorse covert or a moor bird as it is a heath one, apparently as much at home in one locality as another. We shall have more to say about this species, especially its migrations, when we come to deal with bird-life on the coast. But as this Owl breeds upon the heaths, amongst other places, we may as well take this opportunity of a peep at its domestic arrangements, and one or two other characteristics, distinct from its migrational movements. Owls are popularly supposed to be exclusive birds of darkness—crepuscular and nocturnal; but the Short-eared Owl is a regular day-flier, and may often be seen beating about in its own peculiar unsteady erratic way during bright sunshine without any visible sign of inconvenience. Neither does it seem ever dazed by the brilliant gleam of lighthouses, but takes advantage of the glare to catch birds more susceptible to the artificial light. During the autumn months especially we may meet with this species in the most unlikely spots, amongst the sand dunes, in turnip-fields, in wet meadows and saltings. The birds that breed on the heaths, however—especially in the English shires—seem to be sedentary. Although this Owl unquestionably feeds upon birds, say up to the size of a Missel-thrush, as its diurnal habits apparently suggest, there can be no doubt of its great usefulness to man in killing off voles, mice, reptiles, beetles, and such-like destructive pests. We need only point to the extraordinary numbers of this Owl that congregated in Scotland some few years ago during the plague of voles, and the way in which they preyed upon them, for an object-lesson of this bird’s usefulness to man. In the matter of its nesting the Short-eared Owl presents us with another anomaly. Fully in keeping with its love for open country and its partiality for daylight, it nests upon the bare ground, and in this respect differs from all the other British species. We say “nests”, but in reality there is little or no provision made for the eggs, beyond a mere hollow in which a few scraps of withered herbage are strewn. The half-dozen creamy-white eggs are, therefore, conspicuous enough in many places, though better concealed in others when they are laid under bracken or amongst heath. The sitting bird, however, crouches close over them, and shields them from observation by her own protective-coloured plumage. These eggs are usually laid in May in the northern shires, several weeks earlier in more southern localities.
With a passing glimpse at some of the more interesting phases of bird-life in the northern marshes we will bring the present chapter to a close. The Bittern, formerly a dweller in them, has long been banished from the bogs and mires not only of the northern shires, but everywhere else in our islands, and exists now as a tradition only—that is to say, as a breeding species. The Marsh Harrier—a name sufficiently suggestive of the haunts it formerly affected—has similarly disappeared from the two northern shires (Yorkshire and Lancashire), where it formerly bred. One of the most widely-dispersed birds in these marshy situations is the Water Rail—a species that is, perhaps, more overlooked, owing to its secretive habits, than any other found in our islands. It is astonishing what a small bit of marsh or bog will content a Water Rail, provided there is a sufficiency of cover. Like our old friend the Moorhen, it may also often be met with wandering from its usual boggy retreats into such unlikely places as gardens and farmyards. Although it is flushed with difficulty, it is by no means uncommonly seen on open spots or even in the branches of trees. In not a few heaths it is an almost unknown and unsuspected dweller in the marshy drains and round the rushes that fringe the shallow pools where peat or turf has been cut; indeed, we have met with it almost within hail of some of our busiest towns. Its rather bulky nest, made of a varied collection of dead and decaying herbage and aquatic plants, is always placed upon the ground in some quiet nook in its haunts, and its half-dozen or so eggs are buff in ground colour, spotted with reddish-brown and gray. Though far more local than the preceding, the Spotted Crake must also be included in our review of northern bird-life. Unlike the Water Rail, however, it is a summer migrant to the British Islands. Some individuals, however, appear to winter with us in the southern counties. The migrants appear in April in the south, several weeks later in the north. The habits of the two species are similar in many respects. The Lapwing, the Redshank, and the Common Snipe may also be met with in these situations, the Redshank in summer only, when it retires to them to breed, seeking the coasts in autumn; the others at all seasons. Amongst the Passerine birds of the marshes we may instance the Sedge Warbler—one of the most widely distributed of British species—the varied chattering music of which is a very characteristic marsh sound during the summer. At a few localities in Yorkshire and Lancashire the Reed Warbler may be met with, a migratory species like the last, but not penetrating to Scotland. Then the Reed Bunting is a familiar bird on many a marshy waste, so too is the Sky-lark and the Meadow Pipit; whilst in winter-time these places are often made lively by large congregations of Lapwings, Starlings, Rooks and Redwings, and scattered Jack Snipes from far northern haunts.
The Black-headed Gull.
We may conclude our brief notice of marsh bird-life by a glimpse at the Black-headed Gull. This charming bird visits many a swampy piece of ground far from the sea during spring and summer to rear its young. In Lincolnshire there is an extensive gullery near Brigg—at Twigmoor—from which we have had many eggs during our long residence in South Yorkshire. There is another in South Yorkshire near Thorne; a third at Cockerham Moss in Lancashire. As we proceed northwards the colonies of this Gull increase in number, and in Scotland they are still more frequent. Many of these gulleries are situated on islands in pools in the marshes and on the heaths. Not a few of them are almost surrounded by trees of various kinds, and at the North Lincolnshire settlement nests are not unfrequently made in the branches. We have already described the colonies of the Black-headed Gull in previous works, so that but few details are needed here. In Lincolnshire the birds wander far and wide from their station near Brigg, and parties of them may be met with on the fields many miles from home. The Gulls are as regular in their habits as Rooks, with which we have often seen them fraternizing, flying out to feed on the wet meadows, and following the plough until evening, returning home in straggling streams just like their sable companions. As we get near Brigg the birds become more abundant in the fields; we remember, on one occasion, to have seen a ploughed field black and white with Rooks and Gulls, many of which when disturbed flew up from the furrows into the nearest trees; and very curious the white Gulls looked—birds that we associate with the water so closely—as they sat in the branches side by side with cawing Rooks. Early in the year, and before the birds leave the coast, the sooty-brown hood characteristic of the breeding season and of both sexes begins to be assumed. In Devonshire this takes place nearly a month earlier than in the north. In March they congregate at the old familiar stations which have been in use from time immemorial, and nest-building commences almost at once. The nests are ready for eggs by the first or second week in April. These are generally made upon the spongy ground of the marshy islands or on the marshes themselves, and in many cases are little more than hollows lined with a little dry grass. Other nests are bulkier, and these, we have often remarked, are nearest to the water, or even in the shallow pools. The three eggs are subject to much variation, but the ordinary type is brown or olive-green in ground colour, spotted and blotched with darker brown and gray. In many localities the eggs of the first laying are gathered by the tenant or proprietor of the gullery, as they are sold in vast numbers for food. Many, we know, are passed off as Plovers' eggs, but the fraud we should say would never be successful with anyone acquainted with the latter delicacy. The scene at the nests when the place is invaded by man is a very charming one, the Gulls rising in clouds into the air and wheeling about in bewildering confusion, uttering their noisy cries of remonstrance. Even more animated does the scene become when the young are hatched, for then the old birds show much greater solicitude. An inland gullery always seems to strike us as a trifle incongruous, for we are always apt to associate a Gull with the sea; yet here, miles away from the salt water, often surrounded by rural scenes, are Gulls in thousands as happy and contented as though they had never been near a coast in their lives. When the young are able to fly, however, the instinct of the sea apparently returns to them, and back they go to the salt water to wander far and wide, and lead a life of errantry until love brings them inland again in the following spring.
IN FOREST AND COPSE.