Watching Wheatears, Dabchicks, Oyster-catchers, etc.
The wheatear is common over the warren-lands, and as I have been so fortunate as to witness for a whole afternoon, and very closely, a series of combined displays and combats on the part of two rival males, which struck me as very interesting, and as bearing on the question of sexual selection, I will give the account in extenso, as I noted it down from point to point between the intervals of following the birds about on my hands and knees. Should the narrative be tedious—and it is, I confess, somewhat minute—I need not ask my readers to absolve nature and give me the blame of it, for I am assured that anyone in the least degree interested in birds and their ways might have lain and watched these bizarreries a hundred times repeated, without wishing to get up and go. My observations were made on the last day but one of March, and are as follows:—
"2.30 (about).—Two male wheatears have for some time been hopping about in each other's company, and one now makes a hostile demonstration against the other. This he does by advancing and lowering the head, with the beak pointed straight forward, ruffling out the feathers, fanning the tail, and making a sudden, swift run towards him. He stops, however, before the point of actual contact, and the two birds hop about, each affecting to think very little about the other." The wheatear, I should say, always hops, and, by so doing, always give me something of a surprise, for there is that in his appearance which does not suggest hopping, but rather that he would run over the ground like a wagtail. His hops, however, are so quick, and take him forward so smoothly, that the effect on the eye is often much more like running than hopping. I therefore often speak of him as running, though, I believe, he never does so in the strict sense of the word. To continue. "After some time, during which there was nothing specially noteworthy in their behaviour, the two birds flew, one after the other, to some little distance off on a higher and more sandy part of the warren, and here a female wheatear appeared, hopping near them. One of the males at once ran to her, but had instantly to fly before the fierce wrath of the other. The hen then flew to a stunted willow in the neighbourhood, where she sat perched amongst the topmost twigs, the males not following her, but continuing to hop about in each other's vicinity as before. She remained there some five or ten minutes, when she flew out over the warrens, and with my attention concentrated on the rival birds, I lost her, and cannot say where she went down.
"One of the male wheatears now enters a shallow depression in the ground—not a hole, or the mouth of a rabbit-burrow, but one of those natural fallings away of the soil which make rugged and give a character to these sandy, lichen-clothed wastes. As soon as he is in it he seems to become excited, and running forward and coming out on the opposite brink, he flies from this to the one by which he has entered, hardly two feet off, then instantly back again, again to the other, and so backwards and forwards some dozen or twenty times, so rapidly that he makes of himself a little arch in the air constantly spanning the hollow, all in the greatest excitement. Finishing here, he runs a little way to another such depression, enters it, and coming out again, acts in precisely the same way, making the same little rapidly moving arch of two black up-and-down-pointed wings, moving now this way, now that, now forwards, now backwards, from edge to edge of the trough, perching each time on each edge of it, but so quickly, it seems rather to be on the points of the wings than the feet that he comes down. Wings are all one sees; they whirl forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, making a little arch or bridge, the highest point of which, in the centre—which is the point of the upper wing—is some two feet from the floor of the trough, whilst the point of the lower one almost touches it. All this time the other male bird is quite near, but seems to take little notice of the performance. At length the frenzied one desists from his madness of motion, and the two now hop about over the warren as before, closely in each other's company. In some ten minutes or so there is the same display—or rather frenzy—but whether made by the same bird or the other one I am unable to say. This time it commences on the even turf and not in a hollow, but after a few throws the bird finds one and throws, thenceforth, over that." I have seen, I think, a Japanese acrobat throw a wonderful succession of somersaults backwards and forwards within his own length. With the bird there was no somersault, but the effect was something the same. The man's body also presented the appearance of an arch in the air (as when one vibrates a lighted joss-stick from side to side), but, as the bird moved much more quickly, the resemblance in its case was more perfect.
"Once or twice again, now, one of the two birds acts in the same way, always seeming to prefer to do so over a depression in the ground. One then flies up a little way into the air, descends again, and, on alighting, instantly recommences as before, again, I think, over a slight hollow. The motion is equally violent, but not so long continued, some seven or eight flings, perhaps, in all. At the end of it he stops still, advances the head straight forwards, lowering it a trifle, swells the feathers, and broadly fans the tail. Then the two birds fly at each other, but almost in the act of closing they part, with a little twitter, and commence hopping over the warren as before. It is a constant little run of hops, a pause, and then another little run of hops, each bird following the other about in turn, the distance between them being, as a rule, from two or three feet to five or six paces.
"3.10.—Another little fly up into the air, followed by the frenzied dance on descending. Then the two come together in the mouth of a rabbit-burrow, fly at each other as before, separate again almost immediately, and continue their hopping over the warren, the one still dogging the other.
"3.30.—The two fly at each other as though to fight; but, again, just as they seem about to meet, they avoid, and quicker than the eye can follow they are a yard or so apart. One of them then dances violently from one depression of the soil to another, arching the space between the two; at the end of it he fans out the tail and stands looking defiantly at his rival, who fans his and returns the glance, then makes a little run towards him, sweeping the ground with it. Instead of fighting, however, which both the champions seem to be chary of, one of them again runs into a hollow—this time a very shallow one—and begins to dance, but in a manner slightly different. He now hardly rises from the ground, over which he seems more to spin in a strange sort of way than to fly—to buzz, as it were—in a confined area, and with a tendency to go round and round.[9] Having done this a little, he runs quickly from the hollow, plucks a few little bits of grass, returns with them into it, drops them there, comes out again, hops about as before, flies up into the air, descends, and again dances about.
[9] Very like the action of the nightjar when disturbed with the young chicks.
"At about four the female reappears, flying from the warren towards the same willow-tree where she had before sat. She perches in it again, and after remaining but a short time, flies down, and once more becomes invisible. Shortly afterwards one of the male birds flies to a little distance, but whether towards her or not I cannot say. He then rises into the air and descends with a twittering song, upon which the other one, who has remained where he was, does so too. The two are now a good way apart, but the distance is soon diminished till they are again quite near, when one of them flies away, then turns and flies back again and settles not quite so near. As he does so, the other one flies in an opposite direction, and at the end of his flight rises into the air with the twitter-song and descends, when the other immediately does the same, just as before. Then again they hop, now this way, now that way, but always diminishing the distance, till at length not more than some three or four feet separates them. But it must not be supposed (and this applies throughout) that the birds seem to have any sinister intention, or even any impertinent curiosity, in regard to each other. They do not advance openly to the attack, but get to close quarters in a very odd sort of way. Seeming for the most part to be unconscious of each other's presence, hopping constantly away from and approaching one another but obliquely, they in reality dog each other's steps and keep a constant eye on each other's movements. When at length there is but this short space between them, they stand for a moment looking at each other, yet without any very warlike demonstration. Then, all at once, one darts upon the other—so swiftly that I cannot be sure whether he flies, hops, or does both—and there is now a fierce and prolonged fight. For a moment or two they are in the air (though not at any height), then struggling on the ground, when one, getting uppermost, holds the other down. At last they separate, and for a few seconds stand close together as though recovering breath. Then, as by mutual consent, they retire from each other to a short distance and hop about again in the same manner as before. One of them then again flies singing into the air, and on coming down dances, but to this the other does not respond, and now all goes on in the usual way, the birds getting once or twice again quite close, but separating without fighting. At half-past four there is another twittering flight into the air, and a dance on descent, which is emulated in a few minutes by the rival bird. Shortly afterwards one flies a considerable way off, but is followed almost at once by the other, and the same thing goes on. Then there is another flight and song with, this time, no dance on descent, but, as though to make up for this omission, on the next occasion, which is some few minutes afterwards, there are two distinct transports on alighting, separated by a short interval. On this occasion the bird did not sing either in ascending or descending.
"Here some other birds claimed my attention, and I was away for a quarter of an hour. On returning, at a quarter to five, I found the two wheatears still together, and precisely the same thing going on. Shortly after five they again fought, but this time entirely in the air. They mounted, fighting, to a considerable height, descended, still doing so, and separated in alighting. Afterwards both of them sang whilst on the ground, and then one mounted up, still singing, and danced when he came down. At half-past five I could only see one of the birds, and this one I noticed to run several times in and out of one of those sandy depressions I have spoken of, and which seem to play such a part in these curious performances. A little later both of them seem gone, but now, at a quarter to six, as I am about to follow their example, I again see them, in company with the hen. She shortly runs a little away from them, the two males remaining together, but making no further demonstration. In a little, one of them flies to her, and these two are now in each other's company, singing, flying, and twittering, for some ten minutes. It would seem as though she had made her choice, and that this was submitted to by the rejected bird, but just before leaving at six o'clock all three are again together."