Bird Life Glimpses

by Edmund Selous

The Lark, which, for the greater part of its limited course, is a fenland stream, rises a little beyond Bury (the St. Edmunds is never added hereabouts), and enters the Ouse near Littleport. It is quite a small river; but though its volume, after the first twelve miles or so, does not increase to any very appreciable extent, the high artificial banks, through which, with a view to preventing flooding, it is made to flow, after entering the fenlands proper, give it a much more important appearance, and this is enhanced by the flatness of the country on either side: a flatness, however, which does not—nor does it ever, in my opinion—prevent its being highly picturesque. Those, indeed, who cannot feel the charm of the fenlands should leave nature—as distinct from good hotels—alone. For myself, I sometimes wonder that all the artists in the world are not to be found there, sketching; but in spite of the skies and the windmills and Ely Cathedral in the near, far, or middle distance, I have never met even one. It is to the fens that the peewits, which, before, haunted the river and the country generally, retire towards the end of October, nor do they return till the following spring, so that Icklingham during this interval is almost—indeed, I believe quite—without a peewit. Bury is eight miles from Icklingham, and about half-way between them the country begins to assume the more familiar features of an English landscape, so that the difference which a few miles makes is quite remarkable.

Fifty years ago, I am told, there were no trees in this part of the world, except a willow here and there along the course of the stream, and a few huge ones of uncouth and fantastic appearance, which are sometimes called “she oaks” by the people. The size of these trees is often quite remarkable, and their wood being, fortunately, valueless, they are generally allowed to attain to the full of it. They grow sparingly, yet sometimes in scattered clusters, and the sand, with the wide waste of which their large, rude outlines and scanty foliage has a sort of harmony, seems a congenial soil for them. They are really, I believe, of the poplar tribe, which would make them “poppels” hereabouts, were this understood. These trees, with some elders and gnarled old hawthorns, which the arid soil likewise supports, rather add to than diminish the desolate charm of the country, and, as I say, till fifty years ago there were no others. Then, however, it occurred to landowners, or to some local body or council, that sand ought to suit firs, and now, as a consequence, there are numerous plantations of the Scotch kind, with others of the larch and spruce, or of all three mingled together.

Thus, in the more immediate proximity of Icklingham we have the warrens or sandy steppes, the moorlands passing here and there into green seas of bracken, the river, with a smaller stream that runs into it, and these fir plantations, which are diversified, sometimes, with oaks, beeches, and chestnuts, and amidst which an undergrowth of bush and shrub has long since sprung up. Beyond, on the one hand, there are the fenlands, and, on the other, ordinary English country. In all these bits there is something for a bird-lover to see, though, I confess, I wish there was a great deal more. The plantations perhaps give the greatest variety. Dark and sombre spots these make upon the great steppes or moors, looking black as night against the dusky red of the wintry sky, after the sun has sunk. In them one may sit silent, as the shadows fall, and see the pheasants steal or the wood-pigeons sweep to their roosting-trees, listening to the “mik, mik, mik” of the blackbird, before he retires, the harsh strident note of the mistle-thrush, or the still harsher and more outrageous scolding of the fieldfare. Blackbirds utter a variety of notes whilst waiting, as one may say, to roost. The last, or the one that continues longest, is the “mik, mik” that I have spoken of, and this is repeated continuously for a considerable time. Another is a loud and fussy sort of “chuck, chuck, chuck,” which often ends in almost an exaggeration of that well-known note which is generally considered to be the one of alarm, but which, in my experience, has, with most other cries to which some special meaning is attributed, a far wider and more generalised significance. As the bird utters it, it flies, full of excitement, to the tree or bush in which it means to pass the night, and here, whilst the darkness deepens, it “mik, mik, mik, mik, miks,” till, as I suppose, with the last “mik” of all, the head is laid beneath the wing, and it goes peacefully to sleep. It is now that the pheasants come stealing, often running, to bed. You may hear their quick, elastic little steps upon the pine-needles, as they pass you, sometimes, quite close. I have had one run almost upon me, as I sat, stone still, in the gloom, seen it pause, look, hesitate, retreat, return again, to be again torn with doubt, and, finally, hurry by fearfully, and only a pace or two off, to fly into a tree just behind me. This shows, I think, that pheasants have their accustomed trees, where they roost night after night. In my experience this is the habit of most birds, but, after a time, the favourite tree or spot will be changed for another, and thus it will vary in a longer period, though not in a very short one. This, at least, is my idea; assurance in such a matter is difficult. The aviary may help us here. Two little Australian parrakeets, that expatiate in my greenhouse, chose, soon after they were introduced, a certain projecting stump or knob of a vine, as a roosting-place. For a week or two they were constant to this, but, after that, I found them roosting somewhere else, and they have now made use, for a time, of some half-dozen places, coming back to their first choice in due course, and leaving it again for one of their subsequent ones. Part of this process I have noticed with some long-tailed tits, which, for a night or two, slept all together, not only in the same bush but on the same spray of it. Then, just like the parrakeets, they left it, but I was not able to follow them beyond this. It would seem, therefore, that birds, though they do not sleep anywhere, but have a bedroom, like us, yet like variety, in respect of one, within reasonable limits, and go “from the blue bed to the brown.”

Pheasants are sometimes very noisy and sometimes quite silent in roosting, and this is just one of those differences which might be thought to depend on the weather. For some time it seemed to me as if a sudden sharp frost, or a fall of snow, made the birds clamorous, but hardly had I got this fixed, as a rule, in my mind, when there came a flagrant contradiction of it, and such contradictions were soon as numerous as the supporting illustrations. I noticed, too, that on the most vociferous nights some birds would be silent, whilst even on the most silent ones, one or two were sure to be noisy, so that I soon came to think that if their conduct in this respect did not depend, purely, on personal caprice, it at least depended on something beyond one’s power of finding out. The cries of all sorts of birds are supposed to have something to do with the weather, but I believe that any one who set himself seriously to test this theory would soon feel like substituting “nothing” for “something” in the statement of the proposition. It is much as with Sir Robert Redgauntlet’s jackanape, I suspect—“ran about the haill castle chattering, and yowling, and pinching, and biting folk, specially before ill weather or disturbances in the state.” Every one knows the loud trumpety note, as I call it, with which a pheasant flies up on to its perch, for the night. It is a tremendous clamour, and continues, sometimes, for a long time after the bird is settled. But sometimes, after each loud flourish, there comes an answer from another bird, which is quite in an undertone; in fact a different class of sound altogether, brief, and without the harsh resonance of the other, so that you would not take it to be the cry of a pheasant at all were it not always in immediate response to the loud one. It proceeds, too, from the same spot or thereabouts. What, precisely, is the meaning of this soft answering note? What is the state of mind of the bird uttering it, and by which of the sexes is it uttered? It is the cock that makes the loud trumpeting, and were another cock to answer this, one would expect him to do so in a similar manner. It is in April that my attention has been more particularly drawn to this after-sound, so that, though early in the month, one may suppose the male pheasant to have mated with at least a part of his harem. One would hardly expect, however, to find a polygamous bird on terms of affectionate connubiality with one or other of his wives, and yet this little duet reminds me, strongly, of what one may often hear, sitting in the woods, when wood-pigeons are cooing in the spring. Almost always they are invisible, and it is by the ear, alone, that one must judge of what is going on. Everywhere comes the familiar “Roo, coo, oo, oo-oo,” and this, if you are not very close, is all you hear, and it suggests that one bird is sitting alone—at least alone in its tree, though answered perhaps from another. Sometimes, however, one happens to be at the foot of the tree oneself, and then, if one listens attentively, one will generally hear a single note, much lower, and even softer than the other which precedes it, a long-drawn, hoarse—but sweetly, tenderly hoarse—“oo.” The instant this has been uttered, comes the note we know, the two tones being different, and suggesting—which, I believe, is the case—that the first utterance is the tender avowal of the one bird, the next the instant and impassioned response of the other.

There is, perhaps, as much monotonous sameness—certainly as much of expressive tenderness—in the coo of the wood-pigeon as in any sound in nature, and yet, if one listens a little, one will find a good deal of variety in it. Every individual bird has its own intonation, and whilst, in the greatest number, this “speaks of all loves” as it should do, in some few a coo seems almost turned into a scream. Sometimes, too, I have remarked a peculiar vibration in the cooing of one of these birds, due, I think, to there being hardly any pause between the several notes, which are, usually, well separated. Such a difference does this make in the character of the sound, that, at first, one might hardly recognise it as belonging to the same species. Even in the typical note, as uttered by any individual bird, there is not so much sameness as one might think. It is repeated, but not exactly repeated. Three similar, or almost similar, phrases, as one may call them, are made to vary considerably by the different emphasis and expression with which they are spoken. In the first of these the bird says, “Roo, coo, oo-oo, oo-oo,” with but moderate insistence, as though stating an undeniable fact. Then quickly, but still with a sufficiently well-marked pause, comes the second, “Rōō, cōō, oo-ōō, oo-ōō,” with very much increased energy, as though warmly maintaining a proposition that had been casually laid down. In the third, “roo, coo,” &c., there is a return to the former placidity, but now comes the last word on the subject: “ook?” which differs in intonation from anything that has gone before, there being a little rise in it, an upturning which makes it a distinct and unmistakable interrogative, an “Is it not so?” to all that has gone before.

“AT THE QUIET EVENFALL”
Wood-Pigeons coming in to Roost

Considerable numbers of wood-pigeons roost, during winter, in the various fir plantations which now make a feature of the country round Icklingham. They retire somewhat early, so that it is still the afternoon, rather than the evening, when one hears the first great rushing sound overhead, and a first detachment come sweeping over the tops of the tall, slender firs, and shoot, like arrows, into them. Then come other bands, closely following one another. The birds fly in grandly. Sailing on outspread wings, they give them but an occasional flap, and descend upon the dark tree-tops from a considerable height. The grand rushing sound of their wings, so fraught with the sense of mystery, so full of hurry and impatience, has a fine inspiriting effect; it sweeps the soul, one may say, filling it with wild elemental emotions. What is this? Is it not a yearning back to something that one once was, a backward-rushing tide down the long, long line of advance? I believe that most of those vague, undefined, yet strongly pleasurable emotions that are apt to puzzle us—such, for instance, as Wordsworth looks upon as “intimations of immortality”—have their origin in the ordinary laws of inheritance. What evidence of such immortality as is here imagined do these supposed intimations of it offer? Do they not bear a considerable resemblance to the feelings which music calls up in us, and which Darwin has rationally explained?[1] “All these facts,” says Darwin, “with respect to music and impassioned speech, become intelligible to a certain extent, if we may assume that musical tones and rhythm were used by our half-human ancestors during the season of courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited, not only by love, but by the strong feelings of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph. From the deeply-laid principle of inherited associations, musical tones, in this case, would be likely to call up, vaguely and indefinitely, the strong emotions of a long-past age. Thus, in the Chinese annals it is said, ‘Music’ (and this is Chinese music, by the way) ‘has the power of making heaven descend upon earth’; and, again, as Herbert Spencer remarks, ‘Music arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not conceived the possibility, and do not know the meaning’; or, as Richter says, ‘tells us of things we have not seen and shall not see.’” I have little doubt myself that the feelings to which we owe our famous ode, and those which were aroused by music in the breast of Jean Paul and the Chinese annalist, were all much of the same kind, and due to the same fundamental cause. We may, indeed, say with Wordsworth that the soul “cometh from afar,” but what world is more afar than that of long past time, which we may, yet, dimly carry about with us in our own ancestral memories?

There is, I believe, no falser view than that which looks upon the poet as a teacher, if we mean by this that he leads along the path of growing knowledge; that he, for instance, and not Newton, gets first at the law of gravitation, and so forth. If he ever does, it is by a chance combination, merely, and not as a poet that he achieves this; but, as a rule, poets only catch up the ideas of the age and present them grandly and attractively.

“A monstrous eft was, of old, the Lord and Master of Earth,” &c.