Bird Life Glimpses

by Edmund Selous

Coal-tit

CHAPTER VIII

Tits, as I think I have said, or implied, are a feature of Icklingham. They like the fir plantations, which, though of no great dimensions—for they only make a patch here and there—are to them, by virtue of their tininess, as the wide-stretching forests of Brazil. Sitting here, in the spring-time, on the look-out, with a general alertness for anything, but not thinking of tits in particular, one may become, gradually, aware—for their softness sinks upon one, one never sees them suddenly—of one of these little birds dropping, every few minutes, from the branches of a fir to the ground, and there disappearing. In a lazy sort of way you watch—to be more direct I once watched—and soon I saw there were a pair. They crossed one another, sometimes, going or coming, and, each time, the one that came had something very small in its bill. Walking to the tree, I found, at only a foot or two from its trunk, a perfectly circular little hole, opening smoothly from amongst the carpet of pine-needles, with which the ground was covered. Against this I laid my ear, but there were no chitterings from inside, all was silent in the little, future nursery—for evidently the nest was a-making. But how, now, was I to watch the birds closely? When I sat quite near they would not come, the cover being not very good; when I lay, at full length, behind a fir-trunk, and peeped round it, I could see, indeed, the ground where the hole was, but not the hole itself, which was just what I wanted to, inasmuch as, otherwise, I could not see the birds enter it. How they did so was something of a mystery, for they just flew down and disappeared, without ever perching or hopping about—at least I had never seen them do so. Here, then, was a difficulty—to lie, and yet see the hole, or to sit or stand, and look at it, without frightening the birds away. But Alexander cut the Gordian knot, and I, under these circumstances, climbed a fir-tree. There was one almost by the side of the one they flew to, and the closeness of its branches, as well as my elevated situation amongst them—birds never look for one up aloft—would, I thought, prevent their noticing me. Up, therefore, I got, to a point from which I looked down, directly and comfortably, on their little rotunda. Soon one of the coal-tits flew into its tree—the same one always—and dropping, softly, from branch to branch, till it got to the right one, dived from it right into the tiny aperture, and disappeared through that, in a feather-flash. It was wonderful. There was no pause or stay, not one light little perch on the smooth brink, not a flutter above it even, no twist or twirl in the air, nothing at all; but he just flew right through it, as though on through the wide fields of air. I doubt if he touched the sides of it, even, though the hole looks as small as himself. And it is the same every time. With absolute precision of aim each bird comes down on that dark little portal, and vanishes through it, like a ball disappearing through its cup. If they touch it at all, they fit it like that.

For upwards of an hour, now, the two birds pass and repass one another, popping in and out and carrying something in with them each time, but such a small something that I can never make out what it is—a little pinch of stuff, one may call it, only just showing in the beak. Sometimes it is green, as though the birds had picked off tiny pieces of the growing pine-needles, and sometimes it looks brown, which may mean that they have pulled off some bark—but always very small. An attempt to follow the birds on their collecting journeys, and see what they get, is unsuccessful. They fly, very quickly, into the tops of the firs, which stand dark and thick all around, and are immediately lost to view. Whatever the material is, they come to the nest with it every five or six minutes, nor do they once make their entrance except by flying directly through the aperture. They would be ashamed, I think, to perch and hop down into it. Very pretty it was to see these little birds coming and going—especially coming. Sometimes they would be with me quite suddenly, and yet so quietly, so mousily, they never gave me a start. At other times I used to see them coming, fluttering through the sun-chequered lanes of the fir-trees, till, reaching their very own one, they would sink, as it were, through its frondage, full of caution and quietude, descending, each time, by the same or nearly the same little staircase of boughs, from the bottom step of which they flew down. Some days afterwards, they were still building their nest, but after that I had to leave. The nest itself I pulled up and examined, a year afterwards, and it disproved all my theories as to what the birds had been building it with. It was of considerable size—round, as was the cavern in which it lay—and composed, almost wholly, of three substances, viz. moss, wool, and rabbits’ fur. The two latter had been employed to form the actual cup or bed—the blankets, so to speak—whilst the moss made the mattress. All three were in great abundance, and no royal personage, I think—not even Hans Andersen’s real princess—can ever have slept in a softer or warmer bed. It seems wonderful—almost incredible—that these two tiny birds, carrying, each time, such a tiny little piece, in their bills, could ever have got so great a mass of materials together. There it was, however, one more example of the great results which spring from constantly repeated small causes. The cavity in which the nest was placed, was, no doubt, a natural one, but the hole by which the birds entered it was so very round, that it must, I think, have been their own work, or, at least, modified by them. It looked just as if a woodpecker had made it.

It was in a hedge opposite to a plantation like this—a hedge made of planted branches of the Scotch fir, such as are common in these parts—that I once watched a pair of long-tailed tits building their much more wonderful nest. Like the coal-tits they are joint-labourers, and both seem equally zealous. Often they arrive together, each with something in its bill. One only enters, the other stays outside and waits for it to come out, before going in itself. This, at least, is the usual régime. Occasionally, if the bird inside stays there a very long time, the other gets impatient, and goes in too, so that both are in the nest together—but this one does not often see. It is a prettier sight to see one hang at the entrance with a feather in his bill, which is received by the other—just popping out its head—upon which he flies away. This is in the later stages, when the nest is being lined, and when the birds come, time after time, at intervals of a few minutes, each with a feather in its bill. White these feathers often are, and of some size (so that they look very conspicuous). I have seen a bird, once, with two—two broad, soft, white ones that curled round, backwards, on each side of its head, so as almost to hide it. Such feathers must be brought from some particular place—a poultry-yard most probably—and both birds arriving with them, at the same time, is proof, or at least strong evidence, that they do their collecting in company. I have noticed, too, that if one bird comes with a feather of a different kind—for instance, a long straight one instead of a soft curled one—the other does too, showing how close is the association. At other times they bring lichen—with which the whole of the nest, outside, is stuck over—and so tiny are the pieces they carry, that I have, time after time, been unable to see them, even though sitting near and using the glasses. I have been so struck with this, that, sometimes, I have thought the lichen was carried rather in the mouth than in the bill, by which means it would be moistened, and so stick the easier on the outside surface of the nest.

A PRETTY PAIR
Long-Tailed Tits Building

It is most interesting to see the nest growing under the joint labours of the two little architects, and it does so at a quicker pace than one would have thought possible. At first it is a cup, merely, like most other nests—those of the chaffinch, goldfinch, linnet, &c.—and it is because the birds will not leave off working, but continue to build, that the cup becomes deeper and deeper till it is a purse or sack. Here, as I imagine, we see the origin of the domed nest. It was not helped forward by successive little steps of intelligence, but only by the strength of the building instinct, which would not let the birds make an end. The same cause has produced also, as I believe, the supernumerary nests which so many birds make, and which are such a puzzle to many people, who wonder at what seems to them extra labour, rather than extra delight. Even naturalists are always talking about the labour and toil of a bird, when building, but this, in my opinion, is an utterly erroneous way of looking at it. As Shakespeare says, “the labour we delight in physics pain,” and what delight can be greater than that of satisfying an imperious and deep-seated instinct? It is in this that our own greatest happiness lies, whilst the inability, from various causes, to do so, constitutes misery. But with the building bird there is no real labour, nothing that really makes toil, only a fine exhilarating exercise which must be a pleasure in itself, and to which is added that pleasure which ease and excellence in anything we do and wish to do, confers. The best human equivalent for the joy which a bird must feel in building its nest, is, I think, that of a great artist or sculptor, whose soul is entirely absorbed in his work. Those who pity the toils of such men in producing their masterpieces may, with equal propriety, pity the bird; but here, too, the latter has the advantage, for not even the sway of genius can be so o’ermastering as that of a genuine instinct, the strength of which we must estimate by those few primary ones—we call them passions—which are left in ourselves.

It is this mighty joy in the breast of the little tit, which, by the help of natural selection, has produced, as I believe, his wonderful little nest, and if we watch him building we may get a hint as to how the charming little round door that gives admission to it, has come about. He did not contrive it, but by having, always, his one way in and out, and continuing to build, it grew to be there; for even when the nest is but a shallow cup, open all round, the birds enter and leave it by one uniform way, so that this way must be left, right up to the very last, by which time it has become that neat little aperture, which looks so nicely thought out. Something like design may, perhaps, now have entered into the construction, which would account for the hole getting, gradually, higher, in the side of the nest—though this, too, I am inclined to attribute to the mere love of building. The bird builds everywhere that it can, and thus the place where it enters gets higher, with the rest of the nest. When, however, the top of the nest, on one side, is pulled over, so as to meet the other side,[25] where the entrance is, it can go no higher, since, if it did, the bird would either be kept in or out. Thus, as it appears to me, the exact position of the hole in the nest, which is a somewhat curious one, is philosophically accounted for.