The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery

by John R. Wise

The accompanying vignette will, I trust, although the nests are so exactly alike, be of some interest. Whilst the artist was sketching the honey-buzzard’s nest, the old bird, the first which I had noticed in 1862, made its appearance and circled round the tree, uttering its peculiar short shrill squeak. This nest, which had been repaired in the previous year, the dead beech-leaves still hanging on to the twigs, was between forty and fifty feet from the ground; whilst that of the common buzzard, who, whilst sitting, had, a month before, been killed, was upwards of seventy feet, and placed on the very topmost boughs of a beech, on which tree was also the other.

But more important than even the nesting of the honey-buzzard is that of the merlin (Falco æsalon), which fact has never yet been, so far as I know, noticed as occurring in the New Forest. In the winter this little hawk is sometimes seen hunting, as it does in Ireland, the snipe, although but few specimens find their way to the bird-stuffer. It lingers on, however, to the summer, but the opportunities then of watching its habits are more rare, as the foliage of the woods is so thick. In 1859 and 1861 Mr. Farren received two nests with three eggs, taken in old pollard hollies growing in the open heath, which in every way corresponded with those of the merlin, being considerably smaller than those of kestrels. Unfortunately, however, he could not procure the parent birds, and the fact of the merlin’s nesting remained doubtful. In 1862 he was at last successful, and on May 22nd discovered a nest, placed in the hole of a yew, also containing, like the others, three eggs, from which the male bird was shot. Both the bird and eggs are now in my collection, the latter being somewhat richer and darker in colour than those which I have received from the Orkney and Shetland islands. The important fact, however, to be noticed is that, as Temminck remarks, the birds in a woody country build in trees, whilst in the north of Britain, where there is no timber, they adapt themselves to the country, and lay on the ground.[286]

The marsh and hen-harriers, too, frequent the moors and heaths of the Forest, especially the latter, locally known as the “blue hawks.” Some few pairs of these breed here, and in 1859 a nest containing three young birds was found near Picket Post by a woodman, and another in 1862, with three eggs, on Beaulieu Heath. One of the Forest keepers described the fern for some distance round a nest, which he discovered, as completely trodden down by the young birds, and so littered with feathers and dirt that, to use his words, the place had exactly the appearance of a goose-pen. A woodman, too, who in 1860 was set to watch a pair near Ocknell, gave me an interesting account of his seeing the old birds breaking off the young tops of the fern to form their nest. I have never myself been fortunate enough in the Forest to find their nest, but I have often watched a pair on Black Knoll and Beaulieu Heath skimming over the ground, pausing to hover just above the furze, then flying forward for some ten or twenty yards, turning themselves suddenly sideways; and then again, for a minute, poising, kestrel-like, beating each bush, and every now and then going up a little higher in the air, but quickly coming down close over the cover.

Passing from the falcons, let us look at the owls, of which the Forest possesses four, if not more, varieties. The commonest is the tawny (Strix aluco), whose hooting fills the woods all through the winter. At Stoney Cross I have repeatedly heard, on a still November night, a pair of them calling to one another at least two miles apart. It not only breeds in holes of trees, but in old crows’-nests, and will often, when its eggs are taken, lay again within a week. The barn owl, strange to say, is not much more abundant than the long-eared (Strix otus), which breeds in the old holly-bushes, generally taking some magpie’s nest, where it lays three eggs. Rarer still is the short-eared (Strix brachyotus), which visits the Forest in November, staying through the winter, and in the day-time rising out of the dry heath and withered fern.[287]

Leaving the owls, let us notice some of the other birds. Many a time, in the cold days of March, have I seen the woodcocks, in the new oak plantations of Wootton, carrying their young under their wing, clutching them up in their large claws. Here, on the ground, they lay their eggs, which are of the same colour as the withered oak-leaves—a dull ochre, spotted and clouded with brown, and are thus easily overlooked. About the same time, or even earlier—in February—the raven will build, or rather used to, in the old woods round Burley. In 1858 the two last nests were taken, the eggs being somewhat smaller than those which I have received from the Orkneys. Another of its breeding stations was in Puckpits, where, however, it has not built for the last four seasons. Formerly the bird was common enough, as the different Ravensnest Woods still show; and old men in the Forest have told me, in direct opposition, however, to what Yarrell says,[288] that when, as boys, taking its eggs, they were obliged to arm themselves with stones and sticks to drive off the parent birds, who fiercely defended their nests with their claws and bills. Now it is nearly extinct, though a pair may sometimes be seen wherever there is a dead horse or cow in the district.

Then, when the summer comes, and the woods are green and dark, the honey-buzzard skims round the tops of the trees; and the snipe, whose young have not yet left the swamps, goes circling high up in the air, “bleating,” as the common people here call the noise of its wings, each time it descends in its waving, wandering flight; whilst out on the open spaces the whinchat, known throughout the Forest, from its cry, as the “furze hacker,” jerks itself from one furze branch to another; and flitting along with it fly a pair of Dartford warblers.

And as, too, evening draws down, from the young green fern the goatsucker, the “night-crow” and the “night-hawk” of the district, springs up under your feet, and settles a few yards off, and then flies a little way farther, hoping to lead you from its white marble-veined eggs on the bare ground.

Such scenes can the Forest show to the ornithologist in spring and summer, nor is it less interesting to him in the winter. Here, as he wanders across some moor, flocks of fieldfares and missel-thrushes start out of the hollies, and the ring-ousel skulks off from the yew. A bittern, its neck encircled with a brown frill of feathers, is, perhaps, wading by the stream; and hark! from out of the sky comes the clanging of a wedge-shaped flock of grey-lag geese.

Instead of a chapter a volume might be written upon the ornithology of the New Forest, especially about the winter visitants—the flocks of pochards, and teal, and tufted-ducks, which darken the Avon, and the swans and geese which whiten the Solent. I have stood for hours on the beach at Calshot, and watched the faint cloud in the horizon gradually change into a mass of wings beating with one stroke, or marked string after string of wigeon come splashing down in the mid-channel. Little flocks of ring-dotterels and dunlins flit overhead, their white breasts flashing in the winter sun every time they wheeled round. The shag flies heavily along, close to the water, with his long outstretched neck, melancholy and slow, and the cry of the kittiwake sounds from the mud-flats.

To leave, however, the winter birds, and to pass on to more general observations, let me notice a curious fact about the tree-creeper (Certhia familiaris) in the southern parts of the Forest. Here there are large plantations of firs, and consequently but few holes in the trees. To make up for this deficiency, I have twice found the creeper’s nest placed inside a squirrel’s “cage,” showing the same adaptability to circumstances which is met with in the whole animal creation. Here, too, in these thick firs build great numbers of jays; and I have, when climbing up to their nests, more than once seen a squirrel coming out with an egg in its claw or mouth. I should have been inclined to have doubted the fact had I not seen it. The sucked eggs which are so often found must, therefore, be attributed quite as much to the squirrel as the magpie or the jay, who have so long borne the guilt. Of course, too, from the great extent of wood we should expect to find the woodpeckers very plentiful. The common woodpecker, known as the “yaffingale” and “woodnacker,” is to be seen darting down every glade. The greater-spotted (Picus major) is not unfrequent, and the lesser-spotted (Picus minor) in the spring comes out of the woods and frequents the orchards of Burley and Alum Green, boring its hole in the dead boughs.