Bird Life Glimpses

by Edmund Selous

CHAPTER X

Shakespeare’s “guest of summer, the temple-haunting martlet,” makes “his pendent bed and procreant cradle,” year after year, on the flint walls of my house in Icklingham, thus offering me every facility for a full observation of its domestic habits. For long I have been intending to make these a study, but the very proximity which seemed to be such an advantage, has proved a hindrance; for it is one thing to steal silently into a lonely plantation, or lie, at full length, on the wild waste of the warrens, and another to sit in a chair, in one’s own garden, or look out of a window in one’s own house. So, though the martins were always most interesting, I never could keep long near them; yet some very inadequate notings, forming a scrappy and widely-sundered journal, I have made, and will here give in their entirety, since they concern a bird so loved.

“May 25, 1900.—This morning I watched a pair of martlets building their nest against the wall of my house.

“5.55.—Both birds fly to the nest, and one, that is much the handsomer and more purple of the two, makes several pecks at the other, in a manner half playful, half authoritative. I take this one to be the male, and the other, who is greyer, the female. She, in return for her husband’s friendly pecking, cossets him, a little, with her beak, nibbling his head. Neither of the two are working at the nest. The throat of the male seems very much swelled, yet he deposits nothing, and, in a little while, flies off, leaving the female, who, however, soon follows him. The male, as I believe him to be, now comes and goes, several times. Each time, he just touches the edge of the nest with his bill, flying off almost immediately afterwards, nor can I discover that he adds to the mud of it, on any one occasion.

“6.10.—Now, however, he has put—is still putting—a little piece there. Bending down over the nest’s edge, which he just touches with his bill, he communicates a little quivering motion to his head, during which, as it would seem, something is pushed out of the beak. I cannot make out the process, but now that he is gone, I see a little wet-looking area, which may be either fresh mud that has just been brought, or a moistened bit of the old. I think, however, it is the first. Now, again, he comes as before, flies off and returns, and thus continues, never bringing anything in the bill that I can see, but, each time, giving himself a little press down in the nest, and, simultaneously, stretching his neck outwards, and a little up, so that the rounded, swollen-looking throat just touches its edge. After doing this twice or thrice, he makes a dip down, out of the nest, and flies off. I can never make out that he either brings or deposits anything. The other bird comes, also, two or three times, to the nest, but neither does she seem to do anything, except sit in it and just touch its edge with her bill. One bird, coming whilst the other is thus sitting in the little mud cradle, hangs, fluttering, outside it, for awhile, with a little chirrupy screaming, and then darts off. There must have been, by now, a dozen visits, yet the birds, apparently, bring nothing, and do little, or nothing, each time. Another visit of this sort, the bird just touching the rim with its swollen throat—not the beak—and then dropping off—a light little Ariel. And now another: and, this time, the partner bird hovers, chirruping, in front of the nest, as the first one lies in it—but nothing is brought, and nothing done that I can see. It now seems plain that, for some time during the nest-building—or what one would think was the nest-building—the birds visit the nest, either by turns, or together, yet do nothing, or next to nothing, to it. Two more of these make-believes, but now, at last, mud is plainly deposited by the visiting bird; but I cannot quite make out if it is carried in the bill, or disgorged out of the throat.

“6.50.—Both birds to the nest. One has a piece of mud in the bill, which it keeps working about. Yet it is half in the throat, too, it would seem, and often as though on the point of being swallowed. At last, however, it is dropped on the rim—that part of it so often touched. Then the bird begins to feel and touch this mud, and I see a gleam of something white between the mandibles, which, I think, is the tongue feeling, perhaps shaping, it. The other bird now flies off, and I see this one, quite plainly, pick up a pellet of mud and swallow it. This, with the swollen and globular-looking throat, which I have kept remarking, seems to make it likely that the mud used in building is swallowed and disgorged. Another visit, now, but I cannot quite make things out. I see a bit of mud held in the beak, and after, if not before, this, the bird has made actions as though trying to bring up something out of its throat. However, I cannot sit longer against the wall of my own house.

“26th.—At 6 A.M. one of the martlets comes to the nest, and, as he settles down upon it, he utters notes that are like a little song, and very pretty to hear. Lying, thus, in the nest, he just touches the edge of it with the beak, but, though the throat looks quite globular, no mud, that I can see, is deposited. He shifts, then, so as to lie the opposite way, and, soon after, flies off, making his pretty little parachute drop from the brink, as usual. Soon he returns—for I watch him circling—and stays a very short time, during which no mud is deposited. The nest, too, I notice, seems to have advanced very little since I left it yesterday, though this was no later than 7 A.M. Another musical meeting, now, and the arriving bird, finding the musician on the nest, clings against it, and there is a sort of twittering, loving expostulation, before she leaves him in possession. This second bird is not nearly so handsome, the back not purple like that of the other, and the white throat is stained and dirty-looking. It is this one that swallowed the mud yesterday, and, I think, does the greater part of the work—the hen, I feel pretty sure. During another visit, the bird applies its bill, very delicately, to the mud-work of the nest—always its edge or parapet—and there is that quick, vibratory motion of the whole head, which I have before mentioned. It appears to me that, during this, mud must be deposited, but in such a thin, small stream, that I can see nothing of it. Sparrows—out on them!—have taken possession of the first-built of my martins’ nests, and the dispossessed birds—if they are, indeed, the same ones—have commenced another, close beside it. But I must go.”

Gilbert White, in his classic, alludes to the slow rate at which house-martins build, and also gives a reason for it. He says: “About half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day.” To me it seems that, at some stage of the construction, they must build even slower than this, and the curious thing is, that, at the proper building-time, and when, to casual observation, the birds seem actively building, they come and come and come again, and yet do nothing, each time. Well, “tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis,” but it is pleasant to think that all this was going on in White’s days, on the walls of his house, no doubt, as of mine now. When everything else has been swept away, yet in nature we still have some link with past times. These martins, the rooks, a robin, any of the familiar homy birds, can be fitted into any home, with any person about it. Yet that is not much—or rather it is too difficult. Let any one try, and see how far he gets with it.

“May 17, 1901.—These birds may have intercommunal marriages—or something a little outré. There are the nests of two, under the eaves of one wall of my house, and their owners go, constantly, from one of them to another, entering both. When I say ‘constantly,’ I mean that I have seen it several times. There was always another bird in the nest from which the one flew, and sometimes, if not always, in the one to which he went. Thus there are three birds to the two nests, for I cannot make out a fourth. Also there is entire amicableness, for the same bird, when it enters each nest, in turn, is received with a glad twitter by the one inside. What, then, is the meaning of this? Are two hens mated with one male bird, and has each made a nest, at which he has helped, in turn? Or is there a second male, not yet flown in, but who will resent the intrusion of the other, when he does? Nous verrons. It is one of these two nests that is in process of being taken possession of by the sparrows; for the deed is not done all at once—‘nemo repente fuit turpissimus.’ A martin is in this one, now, when the hen sparrow flies up, and, as she clings to the entrance, out he flies. She fastens upon him, and keeps her hold, for some time, in the air. The martin, as far as I can see, makes no attempt to retaliate, but only flies and struggles to be loose. When he is, his powers of flight soon carry him out of the sparrow’s danger, though the latter, at first, attempts a pursuit, which, however, she soon gives up.

“18th.—At 6.30 A.M. there is a pair of martins in each of the nests, and the sparrows do not seem to have prevailed. These two pairs of birds, then, must, I suppose, have entered one another’s nests, and they appear to be on the friendliest terms, a friendly twitter from the one nest being, often, answered by a friendly twitter from the other. At least it sounds friendly, and there have been these double entries. During the time that the sparrow was besieging the martin’s nest, she had all the appearance of real proprietorship. A true grievance, a just indignation, was in her every look and motion. She felt so, no doubt, and therein lies the irony of it. Nature is full of irony.