Now, even about such a prosaic spot as a mill-dam there is usually not a little to interest the lover of birds. That refulgent avine gem, the Kingfisher, is a frequent haunter of the shuttles, and the dyke just above and below the sluice. We have seen this bird perch on a branch sticking out of the shallow water at the far end of a mill-dam and plunge again and again into the pool in chase of minnows, and not fifty yards away a dozen sturdy Sheffield grinders were hard at work astride their stones in the hull which resounded with the fitful deafening roar and screech as the metal met the grindstones so familiar to such a spot. Where the horsetail reeds grow up in a dense forest of dark-green from out the shallow parts of the mill-dam, the Moorhen is often common enough, and rears its young from a floating nest some distance from the bank where only boats can reach it. This latter species is much more familiar than the Kingfisher, and it is astonishing how the Moorhen will continue to haunt such a spot long after the entire aspect of it has been changed. We know of dams, once surrounded by gardens and fields, now almost hidden by houses and workshops, where this bird still lingers and breeds every year, amidst a never-ceasing din from water-driven tilts and forges. The series of dams in the Endcliffe Valley, one following the other through a succession of picturesque woods, and united by a broad stream, all situated in the western suburbs of Sheffield, were a very favoured haunt of birds. There can be little doubt that a century and a half ago Francis Jessop used to search this valley for ornithological information; from that day to this not a few of the birds that are intimately associated with his name continue to frequent the place. Here may the Kingfisher be watched, gliding like a spot of blue across the water and up the wooded stream, which is a favourite resort of the Gray Wagtail. Then the fringe of alders by many of these Yorkshire pools and rivers is a favourite resort of Titmice, Redpoles, and Siskins. Nowhere in the northern shires does the alder flourish better than here; its wood is used to make the clogs—or wooden-soled shoes—so universally worn by the mill hands, colliers, and poorer classes of Lancashire and Yorkshire. During its growth, here by the river-side, its seeds are a great attraction to these little birds. The Siskin is one of the most interesting of them. We often met with it in company with Redpoles, especially in many parts of South Yorkshire, which locality it visits during winter. We never found a nest in the county, although we believe the Siskin has been known to breed therein, as well as in many other counties farther south. As previously remarked, the favourite summer home of the Siskin is the pine-woods of Scotland. Very engaging these birds are in the alder-trees, as they cling in almost every possible attitude and pick out the seeds. They also visit the birch-trees in the same localities, and here they are sometimes joined by a company of Bramblings. These larger and heavier-looking birds are equally at home amongst the long slender twigs, hanging head downwards like a Tit or a Goldcrest, and swaying to and fro like animated pendulums, all the time keeping up a chorus of twittering notes. Possibly the Brambling is a life-paired species, for we have often witnessed various little marks of affection between the sexes during winter. The Titmice are equally engaging. Five out of the half-dozen British species may be met with singly in parties or in mixed companies amongst the alders and birches along the river-side, each one with its characteristic note and all with the acrobat-like ways that ever make them so amusing. These remarks more specially relate to autumn and winter; in spring they scatter far and wide to less riparian haunts to rear their young in spots that fancy or necessity requires.
Titmice.
In autumn many of these mill-dams are recognized gathering-places of birds of the Swallow tribe. In August and September Swallows and Martins in countless hosts congregate over them, flitting to and fro in a mazy throng the livelong day, preying upon the swarms of gnats and midges hovering above the surface. These birds are thus forgathering where they have been wont to do for many previous autumns previous to starting off to a winter haunt in Africa. Then in winter not a few shyer and rarer birds are attracted to these open sheets of water, Ducks and Geese and even Wild Swans paying them visits as they roam about the country. There is a fine example of Bewick’s Swan in the Weston Park Museum at Sheffield, which was shot from a mill-dam close to the town, an exceptionally favoured spot, for Ducks and various other strange fowl are by no means rare visitors during the winter months. Our sombre little friend, the Sand Martin, loves these dams and reservoirs, and delights to tunnel into the steep banks to make its nest. Numbers of Sand Martins so do at the reservoirs at Hollow Meadows, for instance. The Pied Wagtail delights in such spots, tripping daintily round the water’s edge in quest of insects, and building its nest in some hole in a wall or about the hulls. We have seen the nest of this species in a crevice of the masonry supporting the heavy cumbersome water-wheel, and not many inches from it, with its continuous splash and roar. Now and then such an unusual bird as a Stormy Petrel or a Gull visits them; whilst during migration time in spring and autumn the Ringed Plover, the Dunlin, the Wigeon, the Teal, and the Pochard are all known to alight occasionally near or upon the dams and reservoirs of South Yorkshire. Coots, Water Rails, and Spotted Crakes either frequent some of them all the year round or visit them from time to time.
The bird-life along our canal banks if somewhat sparse is by no means uninteresting. In rural districts one of the most familiar species is the Reed-bunting—not inaptly named by some observers a "Riverside Bunting". We can recall how very common this bird was along the water-side and about the towing-paths of the canal just outside Walton Park, once the famous seat of Charles Waterton, the old-time Yorkshire naturalist. The bird is by no means a shy or a timid one. It will sit and await your approach, watching you with uneasy flicks of its tail as it clings to some willow twig or reed stem, then start off in dipping flight for a little way to wait again. Finally, as likely as not, it returns to its original haunt, flitting just above the surface. The cock bird is readily identified by the black head and throat, and white cheeks: in the hen these parts are reddish-brown streaked with darker brown. Its song is very similar to that of the better-known Yellow Bunting, consisting of a double note several times repeated and finishing up with a short spluttering trill. In Yorkshire this song commences early in April, sometimes at the end of March, and continues into the late summer, when the moult arrests it. During winter this Bunting often wanders from the water-side, and then we have seen it in the stackyards, but at no time of the year is it ever so gregarious as the Yellow or Cirl Buntings. Flocks of this bird have been recorded from Redcar towards the end of September, and there is other evidence to suggest that our resident individuals are increased in numbers by migrants from the Continent. The first nests of the year are usually made by the end of April, and are placed on or near the ground, amongst a tuft of rushes or amongst the dense vegetation on the banks of the canal or pool. Externally these are made of dry grass, moss, and scraps of aquatic vegetation; inside they are lined with finer grass and hair. The eggs are from four to six in number, olive or buff in ground colour, streaked and spotted with purplish brown and gray. It is worthy of remark, however, that the intricate pencilling so prominent a feature in the eggs of the Yellow Bunting are absent, the lines being shorter and broader and the spots larger and rounder. One might fancy that they had been put on with a quill rather than with a steel pen. Both Pied and Gray Wagtails are familiar objects on the towing-path; whilst among the vegetation near the water the Sedge Warbler has its summer home. This latter bird arrives here in April and leaves again in September. The Reed Warbler is much more local in Yorkshire, although it is known to breed at Hornsea Mere and one or two other places. In the back-waters of the canals, amongst the reeds and flags, both Coots and Moorhens have their residence, whilst the Little Grebe, if not quite so familiar, owing to its more skulking habits, is by no means rare. It is rather surprising what small pools of water will in some cases content a pair of these amusing little birds, whilst it is equally noteworthy how often this species is entirely overlooked. Possibly their alertness and partiality for cover to some extent explains it. Least showy, as they are the smallest, of all the British Grebes, they are often mistaken for a rat or even a fish; certainly they are as much at home in the water as the latter. Towards the end of March they build a bulky floating nest among the flags and rushes, composed of dead and rotten stalks matted and heaped together, the half-dozen white eggs (stained brown almost as soon as laid) resting in a shallow hollow at the top. The marvellous celerity with which the sitting bird covers her eggs with weed when the nest is approached must be familiar to every bird’s-nester. A great many of the chicks are destroyed by hungry pike, and to this, perhaps, must we attribute the fact of its seldom increasing in numbers, even in localities where it is never otherwise molested. As a rule the canals are too deep to admit of birds obtaining much food from their margins; but the insect life that flits over the surface is sought by Swallow, Martin, and Swift.
We must include a brief visit to the fish-ponds in the present chapter. There are many of these scattered about the parks of our northern shires, and not a few of them are frequented by birds in plenty. Most readers will remember what a paradise for aquatic birds the lake at Walton Hall became under the loving care of the famous old Yorkshire naturalist; how the birds used to flock there in winter and join the resident population that dwelt in that valley of peace. And this, mind, at no great distance from populous towns and villages, in a country filled with collieries and workshops, crossed by railways, and many miles from the coast. It only shows what can be done if we encourage and protect the birds that visit us. Many a picturesque old fish-pond we can recall in Yorkshire and Derbyshire—spots where the deep water teemed with fish, and the big elms and horse-chestnut trees almost swept the surface with their spreading branches, high up in which the Rooks and Herons reared their young. Amongst the clumps of iris and flag that grew so luxuriantly in the shallows Coot and Moorhen made their nests, and their broods of black downy chicks might be seen paddling about the broad flat leaves of the water-lily and the candock, or resting and sunning themselves on the floating vegetation. The steel-blue Swallows and Martins come from the adjoining meadows and park to dart to and fro with shrill twitter, and thread their way beneath the drooping branches of the chestnuts gaily ornamented with their noble spikes of fair yet evil-smelling bloom, like miniature candelabra. The Herons all day long fly up and down from their nests in the tree-tops to and from the shallows, where the roach are an easy prey. How stately the big gray birds look standing so solemn in the shallows! With what patience they wait and watch and finally strike, sending that formidable spear-like bill into the doomed fish, which is quickly disposed of with a grunt of satisfaction! Now and then the Kingfisher’s radiant beauty is reflected in the unruffled water as he glides across; at intervals a shy Water-rail or a Grebe sails timidly out from the rushes, dives at the least alarm, and the scarcely-ruffled surface indicates the quick return under water to the sheltering greenery. In winter these ponds are often visited by Wild Ducks, Wigeons, and Teals, with sometimes much rarer fowl. Indeed, the very uncertainty of what might be found was one of the greatest attractions of such a spot. Here also dwell the stately Swans, half-domesticated it is true, yet none the less ornamental for that. These birds mate for life, and are apparently much attached to each other. They always select the tiny islet in the pool for their domestic arrangements; and on this in April they construct a big nest of straw and sticks and other rubbish, in which the hen bird lays her massive pale-green eggs. At first the young birds are brown and dingy looking; nor do they acquire that pure white dress characteristic of their parents until the following autumn.
The Tufted Duck.
In a previous chapter we dealt at some length with the bird-life of Sherwood Forest. We will now return to that area in order to make a brief survey of the birds that frequent some of the pools in the vicinity of the Dukeries, round about Clumber and Newstead. It would be difficult to find a more suitable place for Ducks throughout the length and breadth of England than some of the charming rush-fringed ponds that are such a feature of this part of Nottinghamshire. They afford plenty of cover and food, not only the ponds themselves but the streams and marshes by which many of them are joined together, and above all they are well watched by vigilant keepers, so that the birds are practically safe from molestation during the nesting season. Here may the habits of the Tufted Duck be studied to perfection. This bird is an old friend of ours; we have seen much of it in more southern haunts, especially during the non-breeding season. Most if not all the Tufted Ducks leave Devonshire for more northern haunts in spring, but in the Dukeries they are to be seen throughout the year, apparently in undiminished numbers. There can be little doubt, we think, that this Duck pairs for life; certainly it may be seen in company with its mate summer and winter alike. During winter the birds are sociable and gregarious, and the fact is not so readily remarked, but as spring draws on they separate more, and from that time onwards to the laying season live almost exclusively in pairs. The nesting season of this Duck varies a good deal according to locality. In southern haunts the duck commences to lay at the end of April or early in May; in North Notts the birds are at least two or three weeks later. The nest is frequently made in a tuft or tussock of sedge, amongst long grass, or beneath a small bush. It is merely a hollow lined with a little dry vegetation, but as the eight or ten eggs accumulate, the duck surrounds them with a bed of down plucked from her own body. These eggs are greenish-buff in colour. Tufted Ducks are most expert divers, and feed much towards evening, during the night, and early in the morning. By day they may usually be seen swimming lazily about, preening their plumage, and now and then sleeping, as they float buoyantly upon the water far out from shore. The Mallard is also a common bird about these ponds and pools. We have already seen that it not unfrequently nests far from water amongst the more open parts of the grand old forest; but nevertheless a fair number of birds frequent these pools for domestic purposes. The Shoveler is also present, if in much smaller numbers, and hides its very similar nest in much the same sort of places. Its nine or ten eggs are, however, pale buffish-white, with a faint tinge of olive. The tame and confiding little Teal—smallest of all our British Ducks—is also a common resident in this district. We cannot say whether the Pochard breeds here or not. We have seen it during autumn and spring, perhaps on passage only; but it certainly breeds in Yorkshire at Hornsea Mere, in the East Riding. We have also remarked several of the above-named species on the beautiful ponds at Newstead Abbey, once the classic home of Byron, during the early summer months, so that some of them may breed in this immediate neighbourhood.
Returning now to the rivers of our northern shires, we will briefly glance at one or two birds that are specially associated with such water-ways. Here in Yorkshire, Dipper, Gray Wagtail, and Heron may perhaps be the most familiar birds, but to our mind the Kingfisher is the most distinguished, and from some points of view the most interesting. We always think a special charm attaches to birds that have a place in ancient history, or that are surrounded by more or less classic legends and superstitions. The Kingfisher is one of these. From the very earliest times of which we possess any record, the bird, for some reason that to the modern mind does not seem always very clear, has figured largely in myth and superstition. Some of these are by no means wanting in poetic imagination. Legend, for instance, accounts for the beautiful colour of its plumage in the following amusing way: When the Kingfisher was liberated from the Ark it was a plain gray-plumaged bird, but flying towards the sun it became of the same hue as the sky on its upper parts, whilst its lower parts were scorched by the solar rays to the chestnut tint they now are. Fable is also curiously associated with the domestic arrangements of the Kingfisher, mid-winter being given as the date of its reproduction. Ovid tells us that during this period Æolus, the god of wind, exerted his influence, so that the tempests were quieted and the sea remained calm, upon which the floating nest might remain in safety for the seven Halcyon Days. As old Shakespeare has it: