Bird Life Glimpses

by Edmund Selous

Besides, it is not merely what a bird says, that one would like to know, but what it means, and how it says it. One would like a description, where there is anything to describe, and no one, I am sure, could see a pair of dabchicks put their heads together and break out like this, and then say, tout court—without comment, even, much less enthusiasm, as though it exhausted the matter—“the note is a whit, whit.” No, no one could be so cold-blooded. Though an alphabet of letters may follow his name, the dabchick is a sealed book to any one who writes of it like that. So now, coming again to the meaning of this little duet, there can, as I say, be no doubt that it expresses contentment, but this contentment is not of a quiet kind. It is raised, for the moment, to a pitch of exaltation that throws a sort of triumph into it. It is an access, an overflowing, of happiness, and the note of love, though, now, in winter, a little subdued, must be there too, for, as I say, these birds mate for life. So, at least, I feel sure, and so I believe it to be with most other birds. Permanent union, with recurrent incentive to unite, matrimony always and courtship every spring—as one aerates, at intervals, the water in an aquarium—that, I believe, is the way of it; a good way, too—the next best plan to changing the water is not to let it get stagnant.

Whenever I can catch at evidence in regard to the sexual relations of birds, it always seems to point in this direction. Take, for instance, that species to which I now devote the rest of this chapter, the moorhen, namely—Gallinula chloropus—for the dabchick has been an encroachment. A very small pond in my orchard of some three half-dead fruit-trees was tenanted by a single pair, who built their nest there yearly. Had it not been for a cat, whose influence and position in the family was fixed beyond my power of shaking, I should have made, one year, a very close study, indeed, of the domestic economy of these two birds; but this tiresome creature, either by the aid of a clump of rushes, amidst which it was situated, or by jumping out boldly from the bank, got at the nest, though it was at some distance, and upset the eggs into the water. As a consequence, the birds deserted both nest and pond, nor did the lost opportunity ever return. A few points of interest, however, I had been able to observe, before the cat intervened. The year before, I had noticed two slight nests in the pond, in neither of which were any eggs laid, whilst the pond itself remained always, as far as I could see, in possession of this one pair of birds only. In the following spring I again noted two moorhens’ nests, in approximately the same situations as before, and now I observed further. During the greater part of the day no moorhens were to be seen in the pond, but, as evening began to fall, first one and then another of these two birds would either steal silently into it, through a little channel communicating with the river, or else out of the clump of rushes where one of these nests had been built. The other one was amongst the half-submerged branches of a fallen tree, the trunk of which arched a corner of the pond. Over to here the birds would swim, and one of them, ascending and running along the tree-trunk, would enter the nest, and sit in it quietly, for a little while. Then it would creep, quietly, out of it, run down the trunk, again, into the water, and swim over to this same clump of rushes, from which, in some cases, it had come. Whether it then sat in the nest there, also, I cannot so positively affirm, but I have no doubt that it did, for I could see it, for some time, through the glasses, a perfectly still, dark object, somewhat raised above the surface of the water. Assuming it to have been sitting in this nest, then it had, certainly, just left the other one, and, moreover, there were the two nests, and only the one pair of birds. For, as I say, I never saw more than two moorhens, at a time, in this pond, which, being very small, was, probably, considered by these as their property. Intrusion on the part of any other bird would, no doubt, have been resented, but I never saw or heard any brawling. The pretty scene of peaceful, calm, loving proprietorship, was not once disturbed.

When the two birds were together, one swam, commonly, but just behind the other, and kept pressing against it in a series of little, soft impulses—a quietly amorous manner, much for edification to see. Each night, from a little before the darkness closed in, one of these moorhens—I believe always the same one—would climb out on a particular branch of the fallen tree, and standing there, just on the edge of the black water, bathe and preen itself till I could see it no longer. It never varied from just this one place on the branch, which, though a thin one, made there a sort of loop in the water, where it could stand, or sit, very comfortably. The other of the two had, no doubt, a tiring-place of its own—I judge so, at least, because it would, probably, have bathed and preened about the same time, but, if so, it did so somewhere where I could not see it. Moorhens have special bathing-places, to which one may see several come, one after the other. This is at various times of the day, but I have noticed, too, this special last bathe and preening, before retiring for the night; and here I do not remember seeing two birds resort to the same spot. There would seem, therefore, to be a general bathing-place for the daytime, and a private one for the evening.

Here, then, we have two nests built by one and the same pair of moorhens, both of which were sat in—whether as a matter of convenience, by both parties, or by the female, only, in order to lay, I cannot be sure—some days before the eggs appeared. But, two days afterwards, I found two other nests, or nest-like structures, at different points of the same pond, and these, for the reasons before given, must most certainly have been made by the same pair of birds; for they were moorhens’ nests, and to imagine that four pairs of moorhens had been building in so confined an area, without my ever having seen more than two birds together, within it, though watching morning and evening, and for hours at a time, is to pensar en lo imposible, as Don Quijote is fond of saying. On the next day, I found the first egg, in one of the two nests last noticed—not in either of those, therefore, that I had seen the bird sitting in. This was on the 5th of May, and in as many days six more were added, making seven, after which came the cat, and my record, which I had hoped would be a very close and full one, came to an end. During this time, however, I had remarked yet a fifth nest, built against the trunk of a young fir-tree, that had fallen into the same small clump of rushes where the one with the eggs, and another, were: and all these five had sprung up within the last few weeks, for they had certainly not been there before. The number of moorhens’ nests along the little stream, here, had often struck me with surprise, though knowing it to be much haunted by these birds. After these observations, I paid more particular attention, and found, in one place, four nests so close together as to make it very unlikely they could have been the work of different birds; and, of these, all but one remained permanently empty. Moreover, the three others, though obviously, as it seemed to me, the work of moorhens, had a very unfinished appearance compared to the one that fulfilled its legitimate purpose. Less material had been used—though they varied in regard to this—and they seemed to have been formed, to a more exclusive extent, by the bending over of the growing rushes. As I say, no eggs were ever laid in these three nests, but in one of them I once found the moorhen who had laid in the other, sitting with her brood of young chicks. I have little doubt but that she had made the four, and was accustomed thus to sit in all of them. Whether she had made the supernumerary ones with any definite object of the sort, it is more difficult to say. For myself, I doubt this; but, at any rate, the moorhen would seem to stand prominent amongst the birds which have this habit of over-building, as one may call it—a much larger body, I believe, than is generally supposed.

With the above habit, a much stranger one, which, from a single observation, I believe this species to have, is, perhaps, indirectly connected. Moorhens, as a rule, lay a good many eggs—from seven to eleven, if not, sometimes, more. I have, however, upon various occasions, found them sitting on a much smaller number—on four once, and once, even, upon only three—notwithstanding that these represented the first brood. The nest with only three eggs I had watched for some days before the hatching took place. It could hardly have been, therefore, that others had been hatched out before, and the chicks gone; nor had it ever occurred to me that the original number might have been artificially diminished, by the birds themselves. One day, however, I happened to be watching a pair of moorhens, by a lake in a certain park, when I noticed one of them walking away from the nest—to which, though it appeared quite built, they had both been adding—with some large thing, of a rounded shape, in its bill. Before I had time to make out what this thing was, the bird, still carrying it, became hidden behind some foliage, and this happened again on a second occasion, much to my disappointment, since my curiosity was now aroused. Resolved not to miss another opportunity if I could help it, I kept the glasses turned upon this bird whenever it was visible, and very soon I saw it go again to the nest, and, standing just outside it, with its head craned over the rim, spear down suddenly into it, and then walk away, with an egg transfixed on its bill. The nest was on a mudbank in the midst of shallow water, through which the bird waded to the shore, and deposited the egg there, somewhere where I could not see it. Twice, now, at short intervals, the same bird returned to the nest, speared down with its bill, withdrew it with an egg spitted on its point, and walked away with it, as before. Instead of landing with it, however, it, each of these times, dropped it in the muddy water, and I saw as clearly through the glasses as if I had been there, that the egg, each time, sank. This shows that they were fresh, for one can test eggs in this manner. Had it been, not the whole egg, but only the greater part of its shell that the bird was carrying, this would have floated, a conspicuous object on the black, stagnant water. That it was the whole egg, and transfixed, as I say, not carried, I am quite certain, for I caught, through the glasses, the full oval outline, and could see, where the beak pierced it, a thin, transparent streamer of the albumen depending from the hole, and being blown about by the wind. As birds remove the shells of their hatched eggs from the nest, I took particular pains not to be mistaken on this point, the result being absolute certainty as far as my own mind is concerned. The circumstances, however, were not such as to allow me to verify them by walking to the spot. Early on the following morning I returned to my post of observation, and now I at once saw, on using the glasses, the empty egg-shell, as it appeared to be, floating on the water just where I had seen it sink the day before. No doubt the yelk-sac had been pierced by the bill of the bird, so that the contents had gradually escaped, and the shell risen to the surface as a consequence. This moorhen, then, had destroyed, at the very least, as I now feel certain, five of its own eggs, for that, on the first two occasions, it had acted in the same way as on the last three, there can be no reasonable doubt, nor is it wonderful that I should not, then, have quite made out what it was doing, considering its quick disappearance and the hurried view of it that I got. Afterwards, I saw the whole thing from the beginning, and had a very good view throughout. At the nest, especially, the bird was both nearer to me, and stood in a good position for observation.

Here, then, we seem introduced to a new possibility in bird life—parental prudence, or something analogous to it, purposely limiting the number of offspring to be reared. I can conceive, myself, how a habit of this sort might become developed in a bird, for the number of eggs that can be comfortably sat upon must depend upon the size of the nest; and this might tend to decrease, not at all on account of a bird’s laziness, but owing to that very habit of building supernumerary nests, which appears to be so developed in the moorhen. That a second nest should, through eagerness, be begun before the first was finished, is what one might expect, and also that the nest, under these circumstances, would get gradually smaller—for what the bird was always doing would soon seem to it the right thing to do. As a matter of fact, the size of moorhens’ nests does vary very greatly, some being thick, deep, and massive, with a large circumference, whilst others are a mere shallow shell that the bird, when sitting, almost covers. Such a one was that which I have mentioned, as containing only four eggs—for they quite filled the nest, so that it would not have been easy for the bird to have incubated a larger number. The one from which the five eggs were carried, was, however, quite a bulky one. But whatever the explanation may be, this particular moorhen that I saw certainly did destroy five of its own eggs, carrying them off, speared on its bill, in the way I have described. Either it was an individual eccentricity on the part of one bird, or others are accustomed to do the same, which last, I think, is quite possible, when we consider how rarely it is that birds are seen removing the shells of the hatched eggs from their nests, which, however, they always do. Certain of the cow-birds of America have, it seems, the habit of pecking holes both in their own eggs and those of the bird in whose nest they are laid.[29] The cow-bird is a very prolific layer, and it is possible that we may see, in this proceeding, the survival of a means which it once employed to avoid the discomfort attendant on the rearing of too large a family, before it had hit upon a still better way out of the difficulty. The way in which the moorhen carried the eggs is interesting, since it is that employed by ravens in the Shetlands, when they rob the sea-fowl. It would seem, indeed, the only way in which a bird could carry an egg of any size, without crushing it up.

As bearing on the strongly developed nest-building instinct of the moorhen, leading it, sometimes, to make four or five when only one is required, it is interesting to find that, in some cases, the building is continued all the while the eggs are being hatched, or even whilst the young are sitting in the nest—in fact as long as the nest is in regular occupation. The one bird swims up with reeds or rushes in his bill—sometimes with a long flag that trails far behind him on the water—and these are received and put into position by the other, in the nest. Thus the shape of the nest may vary, something, from day to day, and from a point where, yesterday, the eggs, as one stood, were quite visible, to-day they will be completely hidden by a sconce, or parapet that has since been thrown up. It may be thought, from this, that the birds have some definite object in thus continuing their labours, but, for myself, I believe that it is merely in deference to a blind impulse, which is its own pleasure and reward. It is a pretty thing to see a pair of moorhens building. During the later stages they will run about, together, on the land, their necks stretched eagerly out, the whole body craned forward, searching, examining, sometimes both seizing on something at the same time—the one a twig, the other a brown leaf—and then running with them, cheek by jowl, to the nest, on which both climb, and place them, standing side by side. On their next going forth, they may start in different directions, or become separated, so that when one goes back to the nest he may find the other already upon it. It is interesting, then, to see him reach up, with whatever he has brought, and present it to his partner’s bill, who takes it of him, and at once arranges it. The look, the general appearance of interest and tender solicitude, which the bird, particularly, that presents his offering, has, must be seen to be appreciated. Not that the other is deficient in this respect—a gracious, pleased acceptance, with an interest all as keen, speaks in each feather, too. The expression of a bird is given by its whole attitude—everything about it, from beak to toe and tail—and, by dint of this, it often appears to me to have as much as an intelligent human being has, by the play of feature; in which, of course, birds are deficient—at least to our eyes. Certain I am that no dressed human being could express more, in offering something to another, than a bird sometimes does; and if it be said that we cannot be sure of this, that it is mere inference based on analogy, it may be answered that, equally, we cannot be sure, in the other case—nor, indeed, in anything.

When the male and female moorhen stand, together, on the nest, it is impossible to distinguish one from the other. The legs, which in the male, alone, are gartered, are generally hidden, whilst the splendid scarlet cere—making a little conflagration amongst the rushes—and the coloration of the plumage, are alike in both—at least for field observation. In the early autumn, and onwards, one sees numbers of moorhens that have a green cere, instead of a red one, and the plumage of whose back and wings is of a very plain, sober brown, much lighter than we have known it hitherto. These are the young birds of the preceding spring and summer, and everything in regard to their different coloration would be simple enough, if it were not for a curious fact—or one which seems to me to be curious—viz. this, that the moorhen chicks have, when first hatched, and for some time afterwards, a red cere, as at maturity. It seems very strange that, being born with what is, probably, a sexual adornment, they should afterwards lose it, to reacquire it, again, later on. Darwin explains the difference between the young and the parent form, upon the principle that “at whatever period of life a peculiarity first appears, it tends to reappear in the offspring, at a corresponding age, though sometimes earlier.” Thus, in the plumage of the young and female pheasant, or the young green woodpecker, we may suppose ourselves to see the ancestral unadorned states of these birds. But what should we think if the young male pheasant was, at first, as brilliant as the mature bird, then became plain, like the female, and afterwards reassumed its original brilliancy, or if the woodpecker of either sex were first green, then brown, and then green again. If the young moorhen, having exchanged its scarlet cere for a much less showy one, kept this latter through life, we should, I suppose, assume that the first had been acquired long ago, and then lost for some reason, possibly because change of habits, or circumstances, had made it more of a disadvantage, by being conspicuous, than it had remained an advantage, by being attractive. Are we, now, to think that, having acquired, and then lost, the crimson, the bird has subsequently reacquired it? If so, what has been the reason for this? Were green ceres, for some time, preferred to scarlet ones? This hardly seems probable, since the green, in this instance, is pale and dull. However, birds are but birds, and even amongst ourselves anything may be fashionable, even downright ugliness, as is almost equally well seen in a milliner’s shop or a picture gallery. As far as the mere loss of beauty is concerned, a parallel example is offered by the coot, which, in its young state, is all-glorious, about the head, with orange and purple, which changes, later, to a uniform, sooty black. But the coot stops there; it does not get back, later on, the colours it has lost.

Young moorhens are almost, if not quite, as precocious as chickens. Out of three that were in the egg, the day before, I found two, once, sitting in the nest, from which the shells had already been removed. The nest was on a snag in the midst of a small pond, or, rather, pool, so that I could not get to it; but, as I walked up to the water’s edge, both the chicks evinced anxiety, though in varying degrees. One kept where it was, at the bottom of the nest, the other crawled to the edge and lay with its head partly over it, as though ready to take the water, which, no doubt, both would have done, had I been able to come nearer. Yet, in all probability, as the pool lay in a deep hollow, seldom visited, I was the first human being they had either of them ever seen. The third egg was, as yet, unhatched; but coming, again, on the following day, the nest was entirely empty, and I now found pieces of the egg-shells, lying high and dry upon the bank of the pool, to which they had evidently been carried by the parent birds. In the same way, it will be remembered, the moorhen that destroyed its eggs, walked with them through the water, to the bank, on which it placed three out of the five—two at some distance away.

Though so precocious, yet the young moorhens are, for some time, fed by their dams. I have seen them run to them, with their wings up, over a raft of water-plants, and then crouch and lift their heads to one of their parents, from whom they received a modicum of weed. Or they will sit down beside their mother, and look up in her face in a pretty, beseeching way. When frightened or disturbed, they utter a little wheezy, querulous note, like “kew-ee, kew-ee,” which has a wonderful volume of sound in it, for such little things. The mother soon appears, and gives a little purring croon, after which the cries cease; or she may answer them with a cry something like that of a partridge. She calls them to her with a clucking note, uttered two or three times together, and repeated at longer or shorter intervals. When one sees this, one would never doubt but that here is the special call-note of the mother to the chicks. Nevertheless, I have heard her thus clucking, whilst sitting on a first brood of eggs, and this shows how careful one ought to be in attributing a special and definite significance to any cry uttered by an animal. Besides the one which I have mentioned, young moorhens make a little shrilly sound that has something, almost, of a cackle in it. There is also a little “chillip, chillip”; nor does this exhaust their repertory. In fact they have considerable variety of expression, even at this early age. They swim as “to the manner born,” nid-nodding like their parents, but cannot progress against a stream that is at all swift. One paddling with all its might, neither advancing nor receding, and uttering, all the while, its little querulous cry, is a common sight. Up a steep bank they can climb with ease, and they have a manner of leaning forward, when running, to an extent which makes them seem always on the point of overbalancing, that is very funny to see. For some time, they are accustomed to return to the nest, after leaving it, and sit there with one of the parent birds. When surprised, under these circumstances, the mother (presumably), utters a short, sharp, shrilly note, which is instantly followed by another, equally short and much lower. As she utters them she retreats, and the chicks, with this warning, are left to themselves—to stay or to follow her, as best they can.