Bird Life Glimpses

by Edmund Selous

“Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind.”

Occasionally one hears, from amongst them, a little, short, musical, piping, note—musical, but

“Oh tamquam mutatus ab illo.”

By February, however, larks are soaring and singing, though, at this time, they do not mount very high. The song, too, is not fully developed, and is, often, no more than a pleasant, musical twittering, especially when two or more chase one another through the air. It is curious how often just three birds together do this, a thing I have many times noticed—not with larks only—and which I believe to lie at the base of any antic—such, for instance, as that of the spur-winged lapwing of La Plata—in which three, and no more, take a part. These trios look like a pair in love, and an interloper, but it may be two wanting, and one not caring; or again, as it has often seemed to me, none of the three may be very much in earnest. Be it as it may, with the larks, at this time, there are some delightful chasings, delightful skimmings and flutterings, and then all three mount into the air, and sing delightfully—a little Lobegesang. Nature—wild nature—has two voices, a song of joy and a shriek of agony. Eternally they mingle and sound through one another, but, on the whole, joy largely predominates. But when we come to man we get the intermediates; the proportions change, the shadows lengthen, the sky becomes clouded, one knows not what to think.

In winter the larks, here, as one might expect, keep entirely to the agricultural part of the country that encircles or intersects the numerous barren stretches. As the spring comes on, they spread over these, too, but here they are much outnumbered by their poor relations, the titlarks, to whom such wildernesses are a paradise. Indeed, by his pleasing ways, and, especially, by the beauty of his flight, this sober-suited, yet elegant little bird helps to make them so. With his little “too-i, too-i” note, he soars to a height which, compared, indeed, to the skylark’s “pride of place,” is as mediocrity to genius; but having attained it, he comes down very prettily—more prettily, perhaps, than does his gifted relative. The delicate little wings are extended, but raised, especially when nearing the ground, to some height above the back, and the fragile body, suspended between them like the car of a tiny balloon, seems to swing and sway with the air. The tail, though downward-borne with the rest of the bird, feels still some “skyey influences,” for it is “tip-tilted,” and as “like the petal of a flower,” I fancy, as any nose on any face. As the bird nears the heather from which he started—for he especially loves the moorlands—he, too (perhaps all birds have), has a way of gliding a little onwards above it, poised in this manner, which adds much to the grace of his descent. Then, softly sinking amidst it, he sits elastic on a springy spray, or walks with dainty, picked steps over the sandy shoals that lie amidst its tufty sea. This, indeed, is one of his show descents. Not all of them are so pretty. In some the wings are not quite so raised, so that their lighter-coloured under-surface—an especial point of beauty—is not seen. Sometimes, too, the titlark plunges and sweeps earthwards almost perpendicularly, his tail trailing after him like a little brown comet. But, whatever he does, he is a dainty little bird with a beauty all his own, and which is none the less for being of that kind which is not showy, but “sober, steadfast, and demure.”

Now does this flight, which I have described—the mounting and return to earth again—more resemble that of a lark or a wagtail? It is the new way to class the pipits with the latter birds, instead of with the former, which, now, they “only superficially resemble.” Had they been classed, hitherto, with the wagtails, it would, probably, have been discovered that they only superficially resembled them, and were really larks—and so it goes on, in that never-ending change-about, called classification. If the pipits are not larks, why, first, do they fly like them, and then, again, why do they sing like them? There is a certain resemblance of tone, even in the poor, weak notes of the meadow-pipit, and no one can listen to the rich and beautiful melody of the tree-pipit, as it descends to earth, in a very lark-like manner, singing all the time, without recognising its affinity with that of the skylark, to which—in Germany, at any rate—it is hardly inferior. Is song, then, so superficial? To me it seems a very important consideration in settling a bird’s family relationship. How strange it would be to find a dove, duck, crow, gull, eagle, parrot, &c., whose voice did not, to some extent, remind one of the group to which it belonged! Is there anything more distinctive amongst ourselves? The members of a family will often more resemble one another in the tone of their voice than in any other particular, even though there may be a strong family likeness, as well. Structure is quelque chose, no doubt; especially as, dissection not being a popular pastime, one has to submit to any statement that one reads, till the professor on whose authority it rests is contradicted by some other professor—as, in due time, he will be, but, meanwhile, one has to wait. Classification, however, should take account of everything, and, for my part, having heard the tree-pipit sing, and seen both it and the titlark fly, I mistrust any system which declares such birds to be wagtails and not larks.

I think our caution in accepting merely adaptive resemblances as tests of relationship may be pushed a little too far. A bat flies in the same general way as a bird, but we do not find it practising little tricks and ways—with an intimate style of flight, so to speak—resembling that of some particular group of birds. All men walk; yet a man, by his walk, may proclaim the family to which he belongs. A thousand points of similarity may meet to make any such resemblance, but it is not likely that they should unless they were founded on a similarity of structure. Surely, too, the resemblances of notes and tones must rest upon corresponding ones in the vocal organs, though these may be too minute to be made out. To some extent, indeed, these principles may be applied to get the titlarks into either family. It is a question of balance. That there is something in common between them and the wagtails I do not deny, and the fact that when the two meet on the Icklingham steppes neither seems to know the other, proves nothing in regard to the nearness or otherwise of the relationship.

The male of the pied- or water-wagtail may often be seen courting the female here, and a pretty sight it is to see. He ruffles out his feathers so that his breast looks like a little ball, and runs to her in a warm, possession-taking way, with his wings drooped, and his tail expanded and sweeping the ground. She, quite unmoved, makes a little peck at him, as though saying, “Be off with you!” whereat he, obeying, runs briskly off, but turning when hardly more than a foot away, comes down upon her, again, even more warmly than before. She may relent, then, or she may not, but, at this point, another male generally interferes, when all three fly away together. There is a good deal of similarity between the courtship of the wagtail and that of the pheasant, for, having run up to the hen, the little bird, if not too brusquely repulsed, will run about her in a semicircle, drooping his wing upon that side, more especially, which is turned towards her, so as to show all that she can see—and this I have seen the pheasant do, time after time, with the greatest deliberation.

Having noticed this method in the wagtail, I have looked for it in the wheat-ear, also—the two may often be studied together—but I have not yet seen him act in quite the same way. His chief efforts, no doubt, are those aerial ones of which I have spoken, but having exhausted these, or after sitting for some time on the top twig of an elder, singing quite a pretty little song, he will often pursue the object of his adoration over the sunny sand, with ruffled plumage, and head held down. He is reduced to it, I suppose, but it seems quite absurd that he should be. He ought to be irresistible, dressed as he is, for what more can be wanted? Nothing can be purer, or more delicately picked out, than his colouring—his back cream-grey, his breast greyey-cream. Divided by the broad, black band of the wings, these tintings would fain meet upon the neck and chin, but, here, a lovely little chestnut sea, which neither can o’erpass, still keeps them apart. They cannot cross it, to mingle warmly with each other and make, perhaps, a richer hue. Fas obstat—but fate, in chestnut, is so soft and pretty that neither of them seems to mind. Then there are pencilled lines of black and chastened white upon the face, a softening into white upon the chin, and a dab of pure white above the tail—but this you only see in flight. The tail itself seems black when it disports itself staidly, for it is the black tip, then, beyond the black of the wings, that you see. Marry, when it flirteth itself into the air, as it doth full oft, then it showeth itself white, cloaked in a chestnut. The pert little bill and affirmative legs are black. This is how I catch the bird, running over the warrens, it is not from a specimen on a table; not so exact, therefore, and yet, perhaps, more so—“lesser than Macbeth, yet greater.” Truly these wheat-ears, at 7 o’clock in the morning, with the sun shining, are splendid—which is what General Buller said his men were—but I prefer their uniform to khaki; I am not sure, however, whether I prefer it to that of the stone-chat, which, though less salient, is superior in warmth and richness. Both these handsome little birds sometimes flash about together in sandy spaces over the moorlands, or may even be seen perched on the same solitary hawthorn or elder. Then is the time to compare their styles, and not to know which to like best.

The stone-chat, by virtue of his little, harsh, twittering “char,” which, as long as you are near him, never leaves off, seems always to be an angry bird. With this assumed state of his mind, his motions, when he chars like this, seem exactly to correspond. There is something in his quick little flights about, from one heather-tuft to another, in the way he leaves and the way he comes down upon them, in the little impatient flutter of the wings, and bold assertive flirt of the tail, supported—in spite of a constant threat of overbalancing—by a firm attitude, that suggests a fiery temper. You get this, more especially, through the tail. It is flirted at you, that tail. You feel that, and, also, that the intention, if questioned, would be avouched, that were you to say to the bird, sternly and firmly—in the manner of Abraham accosting Samson—“Do you flirt your tail at me, sir?” the answer, instead of a pitiful, shuffling evasion—a half-hearted quibble—would be an uncompromising, “I do flirt my tail at you, sir.” One cannot doubt this—at least I cannot. So sure, in fact, have I always felt about it, that I have never yet asked the question. Why should I—knowing what the answer would be? But though this seems to be the stone-chat’s mental attitude, when bob and flirt and flutter are as the gesticulations accompanying hot utterance—the impatient “char, char, charring”—yet, when this last is wanting—which is when he doesn’t see you—all seems changed, and such motions, set in silence, assume a softened character. Now, instead of to the harsh chatter, it is to the soft purity of the bird’s colouring that they seem to respond.