In a Cheshire Garden: Natural History Notes

by Geoffrey Egerton-Warburton

I saw a very tame robin at Budworth in 1904. I was in the garden with the lady to whom it belonged when the bird flew on to her hand, and he used to come into the drawing-room without any hesitation and take his place at afternoon tea.

In 1910 a pair of robins built in the pulpit desk of Oughtrington Church near here, and hatched out four young ones. A friend who went to service one Sunday evening in June saw a robin flying about and singing until the sermon began, but then it took up a position on the back of a seat near the pulpit and looked up at the preacher, quite silent and apparently listening.

One of the prettiest little episodes of bird-life is the delicate attention bestowed by a robin on the chosen partner of his joys and cares that I have several times witnessed during April and May. Whilst she remained watching and waiting on the ground below, he would fly up to the food-stand and secure a morsel which, with a tender grace, he presented to her. The gallant devotion so plainly expressed by the one and the caressing, coquetting airs of the other were most amusing. I have seen, too, about the same time of the year, one robin feeding another with flies picked from the grass and the lower boughs of a deadara tree. The robin that was being fed did not attempt to pick up anything for itself, but sat there on the grass quivering its wings and opening its mouth like a nestling.

Robins often catch flies in the air, flying up from the ground after them, and I have seen one dart off from the branch of a tree, capture a passing fly and return again to the same perch, for all the world like a flycatcher.

One showery day in spring I saw a robin on the food-stand washing itself in the rain, spreading out its wings, shaking its feathers, bobbing and ducking about as though it had been in a bath, and I have noticed one washing in wet leaves and drinking from the tips of leaves.

Greater whitethroats are as common in this garden and neighbourhood as in most places. One that had its nest by the old river bank used to come and scold whenever I went near, and never ceased until I left. Such a proceeding looks like a case of instinct playing a bird false, and serving only to draw attention to what it is wished to conceal.

Lesser whitethroats come to us every year, and may be said to be fairly common in the village. They are always shy and restless and more frequently heard than seen.

There was a lesser whitethroat's nest one year (1898) in a holly bush, in which all five young ones used to be, whenever I looked at them, apparently sleepy, with their heads shoved up over the side of the nest. They never opened their mouths when we went near, and yet often as I watched I never saw the parents feed them.

Blackcaps are not uncommon within easy reach of us, but only twice have I seen one actually in the garden. The first time the unusual sound of its wonderfully clear note attracted my attention was in July, 1899. The bird stayed here then for several days, singing occasionally all the while. The second time a blackcap came was in May, 1903. It was in the garden for about ten days, and I hoped it might be going to nest here, especially as one day I thought I saw a pair.

I noticed a difference in habits between the July bird and the one that came in May. In July, when the joys and cares of family life were over, there was more deliberation and less shyness. I was able to watch the bird easily and for a long time together. In May he was restless and very wary, and it was with difficulty I could get a glimpse of him. He was always on the move, hunting about in the tops of the trees, and, I thought, singing in competition with the willow-wrens.