By remaining absolutely still for an hour or two, quietly reading or thinking, one has delightful opportunities of seeing rare birds quite at their ease.
A green woodpecker, all unconscious of my presence, is clinging to an old tree stem near by, and I can not only hear his tapping noise, but I am able to observe how he is supported by the stiff feathers in his tail, which press against the tree, and how his long tongue darts into crevices in the bark and draws out the insects upon which he feeds.
I follow his upward progress around the stem until he flies away with the loud laughing cry which has earned for him the local name of Yaffle.
Hawfinches are by no means common in this neighbourhood, but one morning I was much interested to be able to watch three or four of these birds, which had alighted on the top of a spruce fir in this dell. Their golden-red plumage glistened brightly as they busily flitted from branch to branch, snapping off small fir-sprays with their powerful beaks, and chattering to each other all the while like diminutive parrots.
Now the early morning sun is sending shafts of brilliant light through the thick foliage, and bringing out special objects in high relief.
Just beside me is a large mass of grey stone, moss-grown and fern-shaded. The sun has lighted up one side of this; the rest is in shadow, so that it forms a picture in itself, and my robin has alighted on it as though on purpose to give the touch of colour that was needed.
All my readers may not have so sweet a spot in which to study nature, but I do strongly commend to them the delight of a quiet time spent alone out-of-doors in the early morning.
The air is then so pure and fresh that it seems to invigorate one’s mind no less than one’s body, and in the country the sights and sounds are such as tend to helpful thoughts of the love and goodness of the Creator Who has blessed us with so much to make us happy, if only we will open our eyes and hearts to see and understand the works of His hands.
Eliza Brightwen.