In a Cheshire Garden: Natural History Notes

by Geoffrey Egerton-Warburton

One cock who made himself very much at home here in the early part of 1901, and stayed with us for more than three months, unlike most that have been here, was for ever crowing and clapping his wings. He always roosted on the same tree, and every evening just before it got dark took care to let us know that he was going to bed.

In October, 1910, there was a cock that used to amuse himself by sitting for half an hour at a time on the broad top of a clipped yew hedge. Several hens would sometimes sit there with him: once we saw seven on the top of the hedge at once.

I have heard that in Japan at the time of an earthquake, extraordinary commotion is noticed among pheasants. There was a slight shock of earthquake here on December 17th, 1896, at 5-30 in the morning, and a working man who happened then to be near the Fox-cover was especially struck by the noise that pheasants were making in the wood.

Nearly every year we have partridge visitors, a family party; in 1895 there were thirteen young ones with the old pair, and last year, 1911, again there were twelve. They always seem happy and light-hearted; they dance and jump, they play games like "hide-and-seek" or "kiss-in-the-ring," round about and in and out the drooping feathery branches of a deadara, that just touch the ground, and in the intervals they sun themselves on the walks.

I heard very few corncrakes in 1911, but they are common enough most years. In 1908, one took up his abode in the old river-bed just outside our window, and used to serenade us every night (May 8th to 26th). He went on incessantly, exactly like a clock, quite regularly and evenly. He was at it when we went to bed about 12 and never ceased or varied in the least as long as we were awake to hear him.

What was once the bed of the Mersey has now (1912), thanks to the Ship Canal engineers, become land comparatively speaking dry. But, of course, the process of filling up was gradual, and for some years more or less water was left in the river-bed. During one stage, which lasted perhaps ten years, waterhens, which here are known as coots (true coots are called "baldheaded"), became quite common in the garden. We used to see them rather as waders than swimmers, but we did constantly see them running about on the soft mud, washing in the little pools, and, as pairing time came on, fighting desperately together. In the autumn a dozen or more would be feeding on the lawn at once, and in the winter some would often come to pick up food with the fowls, I have even seen one make an attempt to get fat from a net hung out for the tits. We often saw them perching quite high up in a tree. In 1907, I had a photograph given me showing a waterhen's nest in a small wood near Lymm. It was in a tree four feet six inches from the ground, and 200 yards from any water.

Golden plover come to the Bollin meadows every winter, but not so many I think as when the land was more liable to floods, at least I do not hear their clear whistle as often as formerly. It is not unusual to see them flocking with peewits.

Peewits are called simply "plover" here. There are large flocks on every side though not actually in the garden.

In August 1897, there was an extraordinary concourse of peewits on the bank of the river just opposite. The noise they made was loud and continuous, and birds were flying backwards and forwards all the while. The whole of the bank for a hundred yards or more was covered with them, others were at the water's edge, washing like ducks or playing about and chasing one another, others were picking among the stones or drinking. All the time the noise never ceased, and a friend said it reminded her of the gulls on the coast of Ireland that she heard on her way to America. The assembly on that particular day (August 13th) broke up about one p.m., having lasted for more than an hour. Frequently during the rest of the month, peewits gathered at the same place, but not in the same numbers, and one day in December, 1898, I noticed that there was something of the same kind on a small scale going on.

In June, 1901, when the river-bed had been further filled up and the pools transformed into a muddy swamp, we were able from our windows to watch a brood of peewit chicks from the time when they were first hatched until they were old enough to go out into the world. They were most interesting when as quite little things with backs the colour of the eggs they had left, they busily hunted about for food, or all crowded together under the wings of their mother for short spells of rest and warmth.