Bird Life Glimpses

by Edmund Selous

“5th.—A young martlet has just been fed, leaning its head far out of the nest. The process was quick, this time. Still, it must, I think, have been a regurgitatory one. Two chicks, looking out from their nest, have been, for some time, uttering a little piping twitter. Suddenly, with a few louder, more excited tweets, they stretch out both their heads, and their two widely-opened mouths look like little perfectly round craters, as the dam flies up and pops her head—as it were—as far as it will go, right into one of them. Almost instantly she is away again. Still, from what I have seen before, and from never catching anything projecting from the parent’s beak, I think the food must have been brought up from the crop, or at least from somewhere inside—for I am not writing as a physiologist. The first case which I have recorded should, I think, be conclusive, and it was very carefully observed. There have just been two visits in such quick succession that I think it must have been the two parents. No doubt they both feed the young, but it is not so easy to actually see that they do. One of them flies in again, now, plunging its bill instantly right into the centre of the open mouth of the chick. Withdrawing it, almost at once, nothing is seen in the chick’s mouth, though it is evident it has swallowed something. In another visit, a few minutes afterwards, the finger-in-a-finger-stall appearance of the parent’s and chick’s bills, and the motions of the latter, as though sucking in something, are much more apparent.

“Whether the dam always, or only sometimes, disgorges food that it has swallowed, or partially swallowed, or, at least, that it has brought inside the mouth, I cannot be sure; but I believe that the insects on which the young are fed, are never just carried in the beak, in the way that a thrush, robin, wagtail, &c., brings worms or flies to its young. When one thinks of the bird’s building habits and its swollen throat, bulged out with mud—as I think it must be—one may surmise that it finds it equally natural to hold a mash of insects in this way. I believe that all the swallow tribe, as well as nightjars, engulf their food in the way that a whale does infusoria, instead of seizing it, first, with the bill—at least that this is their more habitual practice. Thus, I was watching some swallows, once, flying close over the ground, when a large white butterfly (the common cabbage one, I think) suddenly disappeared, entombed, as it were, in one of them. Now, had a sparrow seized the butterfly the effect would have been quite different, and so would the process have been. It would have seized it, in fact, but the swallow must have opened its gape, and, in spite of the size of the butterfly, it went down so quickly that, to the eye, it looked as if it had been at once enclosed. Possibly, on account of its size, it was, perforce, held just for a moment, till another gulp helped it down. But the process, as I say, was very different to the more usual one, and I doubt if an ordinary passerine bird could have swallowed a butterfly on the wing, at all. It is rare, I think, for anything so large as this to be hawked at by swallows or martins. Small insects are their habitual food, and of these the air is often full. That numbers should be swallowed down which are too small to hold in the bill, seems almost a necessity, and that the house-martin, in particular, does this, and brings them up again for the young, in the form of a mash or pulp, I think likely from what I have seen, and, also, from the bird’s habit of swallowing and disgorging mud. That they, also, sometimes bring in insects in the bill may very well be the case, but I have not yet seen them do so, and, especially, I have missed that little collected bundle which, from analogy, I should have expected to see. The most interesting point, to me, however, about the domestic life of these birds, is their social and sexual relations, which I think are deserving of a more serious investigation than is contained in the scanty record which I here offer.”

Another entry, which I cannot now find, referred to the sudden late appearance of several sand-martins, who ought—had they read their authorities—to have known better. I cannot help thinking that Gilbert White has been treated very unfairly about that theory of his. If certain of the swallow tribe are sometimes seen, on sunny days, in winter, then that is an interesting circumstance, and one which has to be accounted for. White, in drawing attention to it, has done his duty as a field naturalist, and the explanation which he has offered is one which seems to meet the facts of the case. If a swallow is here at Christmas, it cannot be in Africa, and as it cannot feed here, and is not, as a rule, seen about, it becomes highly probable that it is hibernating. It is not the rule for swallows to do this—nor do I understand White to say that it is—but it is the exception, here, that should interest us, especially at this time of day, when we know that what is the exception, now, may become the rule later on. The whole interest, therefore, lies in the question whether swifts, swallows, martins, &c., ever do stay with us during the winter, instead of migrating, and, in regard to this, White offers some evidence. What he deserves except praise for so doing I cannot, for the life of me, see, but what he gets—from a good many quarters, at any rate—is a sort of dull, pompous, patronising taking to task—“Good boy, but mustn’t do that.”

Moorhen and Nest

CHAPTER XI

The Lark, which is our river here, and more particularly the little stream that runs into it, are, like most rivers and streams in England, much haunted by moorhens and dabchicks, especially by the former, though in winter I have seen as many as eleven of the latter—the little dabchicks—swimming, dipping, and skimming over the water, together. There is a fascination in making oneself acquainted with the ways of these little birds. They are not so easy to watch, and yet they are not so very very difficult. They seem made for concealment and retirement, which makes it all the more piquant when they come, plainly, into view, and remain there, at but a few yards’ distance, which, with patience, can be brought about. The whole thing lies in sitting still for an hour—or a few more hours—waiting for the dabchick to come to you, for as to your trying to go to him, that is no good whatever—“that way madness lies.” In watching birds, though it may not be quite true—certainly I have not found it so—that “all things come to him who knows how to wait,” this at least may be said, that nothing, as a rule, comes to him who does not know how to—least of all a dabchick.

Long before one sees the little bird—long before one could see it were it right in front of one, if one comes at the proper time—one hears its curious little note—accompanied, often, with scufflings and other sounds that make one long to be there—amongst the reeds and rushes, in the darkness. This note—which, until one knows all about it, fills one with a strange curiosity—is a thin chirrupy chatter, high and reed-like, rapidly repeated, and with a weak vibration in it. It is like no other bird-cry that I am acquainted with, but it resembles, or suggests, two things—first, the neigh or hinny of a horse heard very faintly in the distance (for which I have often mistaken it), and, again, if a tittering young lady were to be changed, or modified, into a grasshopper, but beg, as a favour, to be allowed still to titter—as a grasshopper—this would be it. Sometimes, too, when it comes, low and faint, in the near distance, one might think the fairies were laughing. This is the commonest of the dabchick’s notes, and though it has some other ones, they are uttered, for the most part, in combination with it, and, especially, lead up to, and usher it in, so that it becomes, through them, of more importance, as the grande finale of all, in which the bird rises to its emotional apogee, and then stops, because anything would be tame after that. Thus, when a pair of dabchicks play about in each other’s company—which they will do in December as well as in spring—their note, at first, may be a quiet “Chu, chu, chu,” “Queek, queek, queek,” or some other ineffective sound. Then, side by side, and with their heads close together, they burst suddenly forth with “Chēēlee, lēēlee, lēēlee, lēēlee, lēēlee, lēēlee”—one thought, and both of one mind—

“A timely utterance gives that thought relief.”

It is as though they said, “Shall we? Well then—Now then”—and started. Who that sees a pair do this in the winter—in the very depth of it, only a few days before Christmas—can doubt that the birds are mated, and will be constant through life? They are like an old couple by the fireside, now. As the spring comes round their youth will be renewed, and the same duet will express the warmer emotions. Now it is the bird’s contentment note. You know what it means, directly. It expresses satisfaction with what has been, already, accomplished, present complacency, and a robust determination to continue, for the future, to walk—or swim—in the combined path of duty and pleasure. What a pretty little scene it is!—and one may watch these little cool-dipping, reed-haunting things, so dapper and circumspect, as near as one’s vis-à-vis in a quadrille—nearer even—and tear out the heart of their mystery, with not a dabchick the wiser. No doubt about what they say for the future, for when a most authoritative work says “the note is a ‘whit, whit,’” and so passes on, it is time to bestir oneself. “Whit!” No. I deny it. Even when it ends there, when there is nothing more than that in the bird’s mind, it is not “whit,” but “queek” that it says—“queek, queek, queek, queek,” a quavering little note, with a sharp sound—the long ē—always. “Queek,” then, “pas ‘whit,’ Monsieur Fleurant. Whit! Ah, Monsieur Fleurant, c’est se moquer. Mettez, mettez ‘queek,’ s’il vous plaît.” But what is this “queek”—though repeated more than twice—compared with such a jubilee as I have just described, and which the birds are constantly making? Express it syllabically as one may, it is something very uncommon and striking—a little thin burst of rejoicing—and it lasts for some time: not to be passed off as a mere desultory remark or so, therefore—call it what one will—which almost any bird might make.