Watching Birds at a Straw-Stack
One of the most interesting ways of watching birds at very close quarters is to conceal oneself in one of the corn-stacks or wheat-ricks that in the autumn begin to spring up like mushrooms all over the country-side. This is a winter pastime, and the harder the weather the greater will be the results yielded. To have chaffinches, greenfinches, bramblings, tree-sparrows, buntings, yellow-hammers, blue-tits, starlings, perhaps a blackbird or two, pheasants and partridges, all about one and quite near, one should choose a bitterly cold day with a biting wind driving the snowflakes before it, and the snow itself whitening the landscape, but not so deeply as to cover things beyond a bird's power of scratching. Rising early, one gets to the stack whilst it is still dark. At one side there is always a great heap of refuse material of the stack, threshed ears of corn, chopped and winnowed straw, as well as—at least where picturesque farming prevails (and may it long prevail)—a vast quantity of thistle-heads, poppy-pods, campion, columbine, and all sorts of other plants and flowers that have been garnered in with the harvest. Small birds come down on this in flocks, and where the slope of the heap on one side joins the stack, one should make in the latter, by a process of pulling out and pressing in, a nice cosy cavern just big enough to squeeze into. On the floor of this one should lay a shawl or plaid, and then, enveloping oneself in another, enter it backwards, and, kicking one's legs farther into the body of the stack so as to be out of the way, pull down the straw over the aperture, arranging it thinly just in front of one's face so as to have a good outlook. Even on the coldest morning one is warm and comfortable under such circumstances, and the snow without and frosted stalks that one's near breath is thawing, make one feel all the warmer. It is for warmth, indeed, that such an ensconcement is principally needed, for on days like this small birds, at any rate, will come within a few paces of one, if only one sits still. Even when one walks up to the stack in broad daylight, they only fly round to another side of it, and one has scarcely settled oneself before they begin to come again. But hidden thus before "black night" has ceased to "steal the colours from things," one may have stragglers from the main crowd within the length of one's arm, and I have even tried catching one—for the bizarrerie of the thing—by gliding my hand stealthily through the loose straw underneath it. The attempt failed, but I believe such a feat would be quite possible.
As the light begins to creep upon the darkness and the world to grow more and more white, the arrivals commence. First a few greenfinches—principally hens—fly down upon the heap, then chaffinches, both cocks and hens, but hens predominating, with a few yellow-hammers, mostly of immature plumage, and a hedge-sparrow or two. These birds come and go independently for some little time, and it is not till the morning has grown lighter that they begin to form a band, in the sense not of their numbers only, but also of their actions. It is only gradually, for instance, that their habit of all flying away together into the neighbouring trees and returning quickly again in the same way becomes at all marked. They are at first independent units, but as the day brightens and the numbers increase they become more and more interdependent. Now, too, there is more equality in the numbers of the sexes. The females still predominate, but one would not always think that this was the case, for as they all whirr into a large oak tree that is beginning now to be gilded by the beams of the tardily-rising sun, its bare boughs and twigs, as well as the surrounding bushes, are made suddenly lovely with bright, soft green and mauvy-purplish red. A glorious winter foliage this, that might make an old tree feel young again!
All the time the birds are down on the heap they are busily feeding, seeming to put their whole soul into each peck (like the single jest at the Mermaid) and all in a kind of sociable, yet but half friendly, competition with each other. Gradually they spread out a little from the heap, half-a-dozen greenfinches are amongst the straw that one has oneself pulled out from the stack, and one of them is feeding positively within three feet. To see them so near, and to think that they think you anywhere rather than where you are! It is like eavesdropping, it hardly seems right. Now the nearest greenfinch picks out an ear of the corn and, as if to show you just how he does it, comes even a thought nearer. He turns it till it is crosswise in his beak, snips off the stalk, rapidly divests it of what remains of the outer huskiness—in doing which you see him work his mandibles in a delicate, tactile manner—and swallows the inner essence. Throughout he does not help himself with his claws at all. It is pleasant to see this, but still more so to have so many little dicky birds just within a pace or two, all free and unconstrained and knowing nothing whatever about it. It is as if you had somehow got into a bird-cage without alarming the inmates, but even as this occurs to you you recognise the poverty of the simile, and rejoice to be in nature's aviary—at least one may say this of the birds if not of the straw-stack.
There is now, besides chaffinches and greenfinches, which form the great bulk of the numbers, quite a little crowd of bramblings—twenty or more—their beautiful gold-russet plumage gleaming out in an easy pre-eminence of colour; for they are, indeed, much handsomer than the handsomest cock chaffinch or greenfinch, and as both the sexes are alike, nothing of them is lost, there are no dead-weights. Even the yellow-hammers when at their yellowest cannot compete with these chestnut beauties, and the pretty little blue-tits who feed softly—two or three together—on the poppy seeds are beaten, whether they confess it or not. A hedge-sparrow or two hopping very quietly and unobtrusively about on the outskirts of the great central crowd have, of course, no pretensions to anything like distinguished beauty, but there is one bird—one, unfortunately, not only as a species but individually—that may, perhaps, stand up in rivalry even with the brambling.
This is a solitary male goldfinch who, as though knowing the sad and waning state of his clan, feeds all by himself and—as one seems to fancy—in a melancholy manner. Be this as it may, his mode of feeding is quite different to that of the other birds. Whilst all, or nearly all, of these are pecking odds and ends from amongst the straw and draff of the heap, using their beaks only and seeming to swallow something at each little peck, like chickens with grain, he makes successive little excursions to the stack itself, from which he extracts a blade of corn, a campion, or a thistle-head, and then, standing with the claws of both his feet grasping it (like a crow with a piece of carrion), picks it to pieces and devours it, or the seeds it contains, in a leisurely, almost a phlegmatic, way. This is quite different from the greenfinch, which—as just seen—in extracting the grain from an ear of corn, uses only its bill, standing the while in an ordinary upright attitude, and not pick-axeing down upon it as it lies along the ground. Perhaps the goldfinch can do this too, but as this particular one did not on any morning employ a different method to that which I have described, it must, I should think, be the usual one; nor did I ever see it pecking up anything from the ground in a careless haphazard fashion, like the other birds.
One can feed the birds with bread if one likes, and, when found and tasted, this is appreciated. But the pieces that one throws are not noticed, as they lie amongst the straw, so readily as one would have supposed, and often birds will pass quite near to, or even almost touch them, without seeing them or, at least, discovering what they are. A whole Osborne biscuit, upon one occasion, was an object of suspicion. Several chaffinches came up as though to peck at it, but their courage failed them at the last moment, and it was never touched the whole time I was there. Of course, when larger and more wary birds come to the stack, one must keep quite still and not play any tricks like these, if one wishes them to stay. A hen blackbird is now feeding on the outskirts of the heap. She will not permit any small birds to be near her, but drives them all off if they come within a certain distance, so that she is soon in the centre of a little space which she has all to herself. Into this a starling flies down and seems at first inclined to meet the blackbird on equal terms, for, of course, the two instantly recognise each other as rivals, and cross swords as by mutual desire. But even in the first encounter the starling has to give way, and then beats a series of retreats before the other's sprightly little rushes, till at length, being left no peace, he has to fly away. Later, some half-dozen starlings come down together almost on the top of the heap, and feed in just the same way as the small birds they alight amongst. Soon there is a combat between two of these. Both keep springing from the ground, going up again the instant they alight, and each trying, as it seems, to jump above the other, whether to avoid pecks delivered or the better to deliver them. They never jump quite at the same time, but always one goes up as the other comes down, which has a funny effect. They never close or grapple, they do not even seem to do much pecking, and when it is all over, neither of them "seems one penny the worse." The great thing, evidently, is to jump, and as long as a bird can do it he has no cause to be dissatisfied. It is delightful to watch them from so close. One can see the gleam of each feather, catch their very expressions, and sympathise with every spring. They look very thin and elegant, and their plumage is all gloss and sheen. All the while they keep uttering a sort of squealing note which it is quite enchanting to hear.
A few partridges now come down over the thin snow towards the stack, at first fast, with a pause between each run, during which they draw themselves up and throw the head and neck a little back. Then they seem to waver in their intention; and, whilst one pecks at the body of a frosted swede, another bends above it and sips with a delicate bill a little of the rime upon its leaves. Then they come on again, but, as they near the stack, with slower and more hesitating steps, and no longer uttering their curious, grating cry "ker-wee, ker-wee." Instead, one hears now—for now they are in close proximity—all sorts of pretty, little, soft, croodling sounds, seeming to express contentment and happiness with a quiet under-current of affection. Then they feed quietly on the frontiers of their winter oasis.
All at once something gorgeous and burnished steals and then flashes into sight. It is a pheasant. He has come invisibly from another direction, and ascending the opposite slope of the great chaff-heap, rises over it like a second sun. Surely such splendour should come striding in majesty, but he is very nervous, full of apprehension, open to the very smallest ground of fear or suspicion. Often he stops and looks anxiously about, half crouches, then makes a little start forward with the body as though on the point of running, but checks himself each time and begins to peck instead. Sometimes he draws himself up to his full height, and looks all round as from a watch-tower, but after each fit of fear he decides that all is well and goes on feeding again. And now another sun rises and immediately afterwards three—no, four ("dazzle my eyes, or do I see four suns?") advance together over the crest of the hill which, though of straw and all inflammable materials, does not—a miracle!—take fire and burn. But the snow and the dampness must be taken into consideration. All of them are now feeding quietly, but not all together or in view. Two have set again, but three and the tail of another, in partial eclipse from behind, is a sight of sufficient magnificence. Looking at them, at their splendid body-plumage of burnished orange gold, gleaming even in the dull morning without any sun but themselves—for the great one is now "over-canopied"—at their glossy blue heads, rich scarlet wattles, and long graceful tails, one cannot help wondering how beautiful a bird would have to be before compunction would be felt in killing it. Would the golden or Amherst pheasant produce the sensation? Idle thought! Peacocks are shot in India, trogons in Mexico, humming-birds both there and in the Brazils, and birds of paradise in the islands of the east. Of paradise——. Then are there birds in heaven, and do our sainted women wear their feathers? But such speculations are beyond the province of this work.
Now the feeding goes on apace. All the splendid birds keep scratching backwards in the chaff-heap as do fowls, sending up clouds of it into the air. Like the partridges, too, they utter, from time to time, a variety of curious, low notes, which, unless one were quite near, one would never hear, and once they make a quick little piping sound, all together, standing and lifting up their heads to do it, as though filled with mutual satisfaction and a friendly feeling. The low sounds are of a croodling or clucking character. They are not quite so soft as those of the partridges, and, low as they are, one still catches in them that quality of tone whereof the loud, trumpety notes are made.