Yarrell has the following passage on the song of the goldcrest: ‘Pennant says he has observed this bird suspended in the air for a considerable time over a bush in flower, while it sang very melodiously; but this peculiarity does not appear to have been noticed by other naturalists.’ I have observed the male, in the love season, hovering just above the bush, in the topmost foliage of which its mate was perched, and partially hidden from view. It is when engaged in this pretty, aërial performance, or love-dance, that the golden-crested wren is at his best. The restless, minute, sober-coloured creature, so difficult to see properly at other times, then becomes a conspicuous and exceedingly beautiful object; it hovers on rapidly-vibrating wings, the body in almost a vertical position, but the head bent sharply down, the eyes being fixed on the bird beneath, while the wide-open crest shines in the sun like a crown or shield of fiery yellow. When thus hovering it does not sing, but emits a series of sharp, excited, chirping sounds.
The goldcrest builds a pendent nest, made fast to the small twigs under a branch of yew or fir, and uses a variety of materials—fine dry grass, leaves, moss, and webs—closely woven together, lining the cavity with feathers. It is a very ingenious and pretty structure. The eggs laid are from six to ten, of a pale yellowish white, spotted and blotched, chiefly at the large end, with reddish brown.
In the autumn, in the months of October and November, a great migratory movement takes place among the goldcrests in the north of Europe; and in some seasons incredible numbers of these small travellers arrive, often in an exhausted condition, in Northumberland and on the east coast of Scotland. After resting close to the sea for a day or two, they resume their journey, and distribute themselves over the country.
The firecrest (Regulus ignicapillus), which closely resembles the species just described, is an accidental visitor from the continent of Europe.
Chiffchaff.
Phylloscopus rufus.
Upper plumage olive-green tinged with yellow; above the eye a faint yellowish white streak; under parts yellowish white; feathers of the leg greyish white. Length, four inches and three-quarters.
The chiffchaff, although his song is so simple—the simplest song of all—and after a time is apt to become wearisome from incessant repetition, is, nevertheless, one of the most welcome visitors of the early spring; for this small bird, in spite of its smallness and frailty, is the first of the migratory warblers to make its appearance on our coasts. Shortly after the middle of March, and even earlier in some years, the well-remembered, familiar sound, full of promise of the beautiful budding season, begins to be heard here and there in the more sheltered and sunny spots in woods and copses, and by the first week in April it is one of the most familiar sounds in the country. It is not, however, so general as the strain of the willow-wren, this species being more local in its distribution.
It is this early appearance of the chiffchaff, coming ‘before the swallow dares,’ that endears it to the lover of Nature and of bird life. Mr. Warde Fowler, in his ‘Year with the Birds,’ has well expressed the feeling which so many have for this small warbler. ‘No one,’ he says, ‘who hails the approach of spring as the real beginning of a new life for men and plants and animals, can fail to be grateful to this little brown bird for putting on it the stamp and sanction of his clear, resonant voice. We grow tired of his two notes—he never gets beyond two—for he sings almost the whole summer through; ... but not even the first twitter of the swallow, or the earliest song of the nightingale, has the same hopeful story to tell me as this delicate traveller who dares the east wind and the frost.’