Birds and Man

by W. H. Hudson

It is well known that the wood wren can only be properly seen immediately after his arrival in this country, at the end of April or early in May, when the young foliage does not so completely hide his slight unresting form, as is the case afterwards. For he, too, is green in colour; like Wordsworth's green linnet,

A brother of the leaves he seems.

There is another reason why he can be seen so much better during the first days of his sojourn with us: he does not then keep to the higher parts of the tall trees he frequents, as his habit is later, when the air is warm and the minute winged insects on which he feeds are abundant on the upper sun-touched foliage of the high oaks and beeches. On account of that ambitious habit of the wood wren there is no bird with us so difficult to observe; you may spend hours at a spot, where his voice sounds from the trees at intervals of half a minute to a minute, without once getting a glimpse of his form. At the end of April the trees are still very thinly clad; the upper foliage is but an airy garment, a slight golden-green mist, through which the sun shines, lighting up the dim interior, and making the bed of old fallen beech-leaves look like a floor of red gold. The small-winged insects, sun-loving and sensitive to cold, then hold their revels near the surface; and the bird, too, prefers the neighbourhood of the earth. It was so in the case of the wood wren I observed at Wells, watching him on several consecutive days, sometimes for an hour or two at a stretch, and generally more than once a day. The spot where he was always to be found was quite free from underwood, and the trees were straight and tall, most of them with slender, smooth boles. Standing there, my figure must have looked very conspicuous to all the small birds in the place; but for a time it seemed to me that the wood wren paid not the slightest attention to my presence; that as he wandered hither and thither in sunlight and shade at his own sweet will, my motionless form was no more to him than a moss-grown stump or grey upright stone. By and by it became apparent that the bird knew me to be no stump or stone, but a strange living creature whose appearance greatly interested him; for invariably, soon after I had taken up my position, his careless little flights from twig to twig and from tree to tree brought him nearer, and then nearer, and finally near me he would remain for most of the time. Sometimes he would wander for a distance of forty or fifty yards away, but before long he would wander back and be with me once more, often perching so near that the most delicate shadings of his plumage were as distinctly seen as if I had had him perched on my hand.

The human form seen in an unaccustomed place always excites a good deal of attention among the birds; it awakes their curiosity, suspicion, and alarm. The wood wren was probably curious and nothing more; his keeping near me looked strange only because he at the same time appeared so wholly absorbed in his own music. Two or three times I tried the experiment of walking to a distance of fifty or sixty yards and taking up a new position; but always after a while he would drift thither, and I would have him near me, singing and moving, as before.

I was glad of this inquisitiveness, if that was the bird's motive (that I had unconsciously fascinated him I could not believe); for of all the wood wrens I have seen this seemed the most beautiful, most graceful in his motions, and untiring in song. Doubtless this was because I saw him so closely, and for such long intervals. His fresh yellowish-green upper and white under plumage gave him a wonderfully delicate appearance, and these colours harmonised with the tender greens of the opening leaves and the pale greys and silvery whites of the slender boles.

Seebohm says of this species: "They arrive in our woods in marvellously perfect plumage. In the early morning sun they look almost as delicate a yellowish-green as the half-grown leaves amongst which they disport themselves. In the hand the delicate shading of the eye-stripe, and the margin of the feathers of the wings and tail, is exquisitely beautiful, but is almost all lost under the rude handling of the bird-skinner."

The concluding words sound almost strange; but it is a fact that this sylph-like creature is sometimes shattered with shot and its poor remains operated on by the bird-stuffer. Its beauty "in the hand" cannot compare with that exhibited when it lives and moves and sings. Its appearance during flight differs from that of other warblers on account of the greater length and sharpness of the wings. Most warblers fly and sing hurriedly; the wood wren's motions, like its song, are slower, more leisurely, and more beautiful. When moved by the singing passion it is seldom still for more than a few moments at a time, but is continually passing from branch to branch, from tree to tree, finding a fresh perch from which to deliver its song on each occasion. At such times it has the appearance of a delicately coloured miniature kestrel or hobby. Most lovely is its appearance when it begins to sing in the air, for then the long sharp wings beat time to the first clear measured notes, the prelude to the song. As a rule, however, the flight is silent, and the song begins when the new perch is reached—first the distinct notes that are like musical strokes, and fall faster and faster until they run and swell into a long passionate trill—the woodland sound which is like no other.

Charming a creature as the wood wren appears when thus viewed closely in the early spring-time, he is not my favourite among small birds because of his beauty of shape and colour and graceful motions, which are seen only for a short time, but on account of his song, which lasts until September; though I may not find it very easy to give a reason for the preference.

It comforts me a little in this inquiry to remember that Wordsworth preferred the stock-dove to the nightingale—that "creature of ebullient heart." The poet was a little shaky in his ornithology at times; but if we take it that he meant the ring-dove, his preference might still seem strange to some. Perhaps it is not so very strange after all.

If we take any one of the various qualities which we have agreed to consider highest in bird-music, we find that the wood wren compares badly with his fellow-vocalists—that, measured by this standard, he is a very inferior singer. Thus, in variety, he cannot compare with the thrush, garden-warbler, sedge-warbler, and others; in brilliance and purity of sound with the nightingale, blackcap, etc.; in strength and joyousness with the skylark; in mellowness with the blackbird; in sprightliness with the goldfinch and chaffinch; in sweetness with the wood-lark, tree-pipit, reed-warbler, the chats and wagtails, and so on to the end of all the qualities which we regard as important. What, then, is the charm of the wood wren's song? The sound is unlike any other, but that is nothing, since the same can be said of the wryneck and cuckoo and grasshopper warbler. To many persons the wood wren's note is a bird-sound and nothing more, and it may even surprise them to hear it called a song. Indeed, some ornithologists have said that it is not a song, but a call or cry, and it has also been described as "harsh."