His food consists chiefly of insects, though worms form a considerable part of his diet, and snails are a delicacy of which he is extremely fond.
There must be few people who have not noticed our brown friend hopping down the garden path with his peculiar sidelong leaps, now and then varied by two or three quick short steps as he conveys a snail to his favourite abattoir. This usually consists of a moderate-sized smooth stone, on which the unfortunate snail is beaten till his house falls from him; when this is accomplished there is a quick gulp, and he is gone! Thus refreshed, our friend will mount a near-by twig, clean his bill by rubbing it several times on either side of his perch, preen and shake out his feathers a bit, and then resting on one leg he will whistle his song, which has been rendered by some writers in the following words:—“Deal o’ wet, deal o’ wet, deal o’ wet, I do, I do, I do. Who’d do it: Pretty Dick, Pretty Dick, Pretty Dick, Who’d do it.” This will go on for some time until perhaps he happens to glance down at the lawn which he considers his especial preserve. Here he sees something which causes his song to cease in an instant. It is his rival openly flaunting himself before him. There is a swirl of wings as he rushes to the attack! They meet! Their bills snap violently, and there is every prospect of a fight. Then suddenly the rival retreats precipitately into the nearest bush, hotly pursued by our friend, and we have time to notice the peculiar way in which the tail and wings are spread as they disappear. Then we see no more.
Such is the life of one of our commonest birds as we may witness it any day in early spring. By the end of March, or even earlier, its nest may be found in some sheltered nook. It is not often more than 10 feet from the ground, and is generally in the fork of some tree or bush, or on the beam of some old barn or potting shed; perhaps it may be found in the middle of a hedgerow, or occasionally even on the ground. It is composed of rough grass and bents, and lined with mud pressed round and smoothed so as to form a fairly deep cup.
The eggs are five in number, and in colour are a beautiful pale blue, with a few small black or purplish-mauve spots towards the larger end, these markings being in some cases entirely lacking. After a fortnight’s incubation the young are hatched; they are then almost naked and only slightly covered with down.
Incubation is carried on by the hen alone, but both birds assist in the feeding, the diet consisting almost entirely of earth-worms. In about a fortnight to three weeks after the young are hatched they leave the nest to find and earn their own living, whilst their parents busy themselves with the cares of another family, for a pair of birds generally rears three broods in the season. After the rearing of the last brood, which is over by the end of June or early in July, both old and young begin to moult. Consequently, at this time of year they are very quiet and skulking in their habits, but we may sometimes catch sight of them in the evenings and early mornings when they come out to feed on lawns and fields where the grass is short and where their favourite earth-worms abound. About the end of August a close observer will often miss his little friend for a few days or even weeks. Then one morning he will again see the familiar figure on the lawn and think that perhaps his companion has returned. But it is not so. The spring visitor has gone to another part of the country, probably not very far away, as this species is only a partial migrant, but nevertheless he has gone, and the bird which has taken his place has come from some more northerly locality to spend the winter. Probably we do not notice the change, and put down the temporary disappearance of our particular Song Thrush to the fact that we chanced not to see him. It is not so, however, for our friend of spring and summer has departed.
The general colour above, including mantle and wings, is uniform olive brown, some of the major and median covers having buffish tips. Breast yellowish, spotted with triangular olive-brown spots, the flanks uniformly olive, chin and throat white, margined with a row of dark streaks. Belly white. Bill brown, base of lower mandible paler. Legs pale flesh. Iris hazel. Length 9·0 in.; wing 4·6 in.
Young birds are spotted on the upper parts. This species is widely and generally distributed throughout the British Isles.
THE REDWING
Turdus iliacus, Linnæus
From the middle to the end of October, when the leaves are falling thickly from the trees, and the dull, dark days of winter are beginning to make themselves felt, we may be aware, while walking along a country lane or through a park, of a new arrival among our birds. There rises, probably from the ground, a dark-coloured bird, whose quick movement will at once catch our eye, and being in company with others similar to himself, we shall have no difficulty in recognising the Redwing. Tired possibly by his long journey, he will settle on the hedge a little in front of us, and begin diligently feeding on any berries he can find, as but little in that line comes amiss to our friend; and soon he will again drop to the ground, and we shall get a glimpse of the deep red feathers under his wings from which he has derived his trivial name. At this season of the year Redwings are essentially wanderers, moving about in flocks of from a dozen to thirty or more, stopping here and there where food is plentiful for a few days or weeks, and then moving on, always southward, as lack of food or the severity of the weather dictates. If the winter be mild, they may be found roosting in large numbers in thick hawthorn hedges or small plantations; for although fond of cover, and spending most of their time among undergrowth on the ground, they are not very partial to large woods, preferring thick hedgerows or small coppices. A cold north wind, accompanied by snow and frost, drives most of these birds away from our shores to sunnier climes: their place, however, is soon taken, if the hard weather be prolonged, by large immigrations of poor storm-driven birds from the north of the Continent, who reach us with barely sufficient strength to seek their food, and who receive, too frequently, an inhospitable reception. Such wanderers become exceedingly tame, and may be found hopping disconsolately round our gardens within a foot or two of us, and the mortality in such seasons as these must be very great. Happily this extreme severity does not often happen, and one is glad to think that as a rule our visitors, driven to us by hard weather abroad, find sustenance in our warmer, if still somewhat boisterous, climate.
In April, that strange homing instinct which animates almost every known bird, causes the Redwings to leave our hedgerows at their most beautiful time, and to seek a northern home where they may settle down and rear their young. There, where song-birds are scarce, his little warble, which would be unnoticed here in our wealth of songsters, is eagerly awaited, and eulogised as though it were the rich outpourings of a nightingale. His nest is built on the ground, or just above it at the foot of some bush, or even in a crevice a short distance up the trunk of a tree; but if so far north as to be beyond the limit of tree growth, a sloping bank or the shelter of some boulder will be selected as the site. The nest is substantially built of grass with a foundation of twigs, and is similar to that of our Blackbird, to which species also the eggs, though slightly smaller, bear a close resemblance. Two broods are sometimes reared in the season, especially in the more southerly parts of its breeding range, and after the duties of family life are over, the birds unite in small flocks, lingering in their northern home till autumnal storms drive them once more among us.