Then in late autumn the Jack Snipe once more appears upon the few square yards of bog beside the pond where the cattle drink, or in the sunk fences which usually become rills during the wetter portions of the year. This little bird, we know, breeds upon the Scandinavian fells, and yet it will return winter after winter to the very centre of England to some square yard of bog on a South Yorkshire farm, coming and going so quietly that no man may say exactly when it arrives or departs, and living here for months in this warm corner in the fields, in solitary state, a recluse waxing fat in its solitude. Then winter comes round once more. All the summer birds of farm and garden are far beyond the seas; new birds are here from other and sterner lands. The snow-storms come, and the birds congregate in rich variety about the ricks and farmsteads; flocks of Lapwings cross over the fields bewildered and forlorn; the Moorhen leaves the frozen pond and fraternizes with the poultry; the Larks disappear from the snow-drifted high lands; the Fieldfares congregate in the hawthorns, the Redwings starve. At night the scene becomes even more interesting as half-frozen birds seek roosting-places in the ricks and amongst the ivy; yet amidst frost and snow the Robin and the Wren, and perhaps the Hedge Accentor, carol forth an evening song. The snow melts; the once green pastures are brown and withered; scarcely a fleck of green relieves field or hedgerow, the birds scatter on to the open ground again, and so the northern winter runs its course. How different in the warmer southern county, where all is green, and the visit of winter so light that it is scarcely felt by bird or beast!
Garden bird-life is too familiar to require much detailed notice here. The garden hedge we know is always sure to contain one of the first Hedge Accentors' nests of the year; whilst the Wren is as certain to select the ivy on the wall in which to construct her ball-like abode. The Robin as surely returns each spring to rear its young in some hole in the wall itself. Amongst the fruit trees the Titmice and Flycatchers have their favourite nooks and crannies, and the Redstart has returned as long as we can remember to the hole in the old pear-tree. One bird, however, that frequents the gardens of the northern shires is specially interesting to South Yorkshire naturalists. This is the Garden Warbler; and its exceptional interest centres in the fact that the bird was first described from an example obtained near Sheffield—possibly in the immediate neighbourhood of Broom Hall—and sent by Francis Jessop to Willughby, the co-worker with Ray nearly a century and a half ago, the latter naturalist describing it in his Ornithologia. It is the “Pettichaps” of Latham, a name, according to Professor Newton, that had not become obsolete in 1873 in the vicinity of Sheffield, although we never heard of it being applied to this species during a residence there of some twenty years. It is a late migrant, seldom reaching its Yorkshire haunts before the beginning of May, and, as its name implies, is very partial to large gardens. Its habits somewhat closely resemble those of the Blackcap; and of all the Warbler band its song is only inferior to that of this species. Its nest is frequently made in a currant or gooseberry bush, a flimsy little structure enough, made of dry grass stalks and roots and lined with horse-hair. The eggs are very similar to those of the Blackcap, and four or five in number. During fruit time this Warbler is often to be met with in the garden feeding upon currants and other berries. It is most secretive in its habits, usually betraying its whereabouts by its sharp call-note of tec or tac. Its food consists of insects, larvæ, and most kinds of soft fruit and berries. It leaves Yorkshire in September. There are many other birds that visit the gardens in the northern shires for fruit or vegetable food. In cherry time the Blackbird and the Starling are troublesome enough; the Ring-ouzel visits the gardens near the moors for a similar purpose. Then the Hawfinch and the Jay have a great weakness for green peas; whilst the small Finches play havoc amongst the newly-sown beds. Kestrel and Sparrow-hawk, however, often visit such localities too, the former for mice, the latter for birds.
Before finally leaving the farmstead we ought to give a passing word to the Barn Owl. This bird is not so abundant now in many places as was formerly the case, but it must still be regarded as common in most parts of the northern shires. There are not a few farmers, we are glad to say, who fully recognize the merits of this useful bird, worth more than half a dozen cats in any farmstead, and requiring no keep whatever. These birds are specially fond of the tall-roofed barns where nothing intervenes between the rafters and the slates or tiles, where little daylight ever enters, and where ready means of getting out and in are presented. There are farms where the Owl is quite an institution, where no one ever thinks of molesting it, and where its peculiar noises and nightly wanderings create not the least curiosity. In fact, the bird is regarded as part and parcel of the barns, a useful adjunct to the cats and village rat-catcher, and a good many times more effective in ridding buildings and land of some of their most annoying pests. We need scarcely state that the Swift is a well-known summer visitor to farm and farmstead. We shall have occasion to allude to this bird again in a future chapter (conf. [p. 271]).
BY RIVER AND POOL.
Broadly speaking, the northern shires are remarkably well-watered; not only by a net-work of rivers, but by an almost endless succession of pools and lakes, canals and dams, the latter to some extent being due to the necessities of the vast and busy centres of manufacture and commerce. Bird-life in great variety and of exceptional interest is to be found upon these rivers and pools and along their banks and margins, and again presenting us with not a little room for comparison with that frequenting similar localities in more southern counties. Here again we miss some birds that are familiar farther south; we find others that are rarer, or less known there. Unfortunately too many of these northern waters are polluted, especially in their lower reaches and in the immediate neighbourhood of towns, by drainage and factory refuse of various kinds. Rivers that run in their higher reaches over moss-grown stones and sandy beds, clear as crystal, and fringed on either bank with brushwood and timber, become little more than open sewers as they pass the big centres of manufacturing life. The waters are stained as with ochre from the filthy “wheel swarf”, and poisoned with refuse from dyes and sundry chemicals. Yet even in these forbidding places bird-life is not altogether absent, and from time to time Wagtails, Pipits, and such-like species may be remarked on passage even in the centre of so grimy a place as Sheffield. Above the towns where the water still runs clear, and some miles below them where the sediment has settled and the water again become more purified, these canals and rivers are favourite haunts of birds. Then far away amidst rural scenes there are many meres and clear pools where Nature is still undefiled by man; in some of the suburban areas there are clear still mill-dams, which drive the grinding wheels, and which are yet so pure that trout live in them in abundance.
The Kingfisher.