This experiment with tame rooks has incidentally resulted in a gain to the bird life of North London. In the aviary at Clissold Park a tame female daw was kept; there she formed a very close friendship with a parrot, who had the original way of manifesting, or perhaps I should say dissembling, his love by pulling out her feathers. No doubt she was very much enamoured of the green bird with his foreign ways and commanding voice, as she was always at his side and never in the least resented his ungentle treatment. The poor bird’s breast was at last quite denuded of its covering, and the whole plumage was in such a thin and ragged condition that it was thought best to separate the friends, even at the risk of breaking their hearts; accordingly the daw was taken away and placed with the tame rooks. The rooks treated her very well, and in their society she probably soon forgot her foreigner. And by-and-by a wild daw was attracted to the tree and joined the company: this was a male bird in fine plumage, and Sergeant Kimber conceived the idea that it would be a good stroke to catch it and clip its wing-tips to prevent it from going away. The wild daw was very cunning; by day he would remain most of the time with the rooks and his ragged friend, but at night he invariably retired to roost in some tall trees in another part of the park. In spite of his cunning he was eventually caught and placed on the rooks’ tree with just the tips of his wings clipped. From that time the two daws were inseparable, and their romantic attachment promised to end in a lasting and happy union; but after a few weeks a second wild daw, this time a female, was attracted to the tree and joined the little community. This was a fine glossy bird, and no sooner had she come than the male daw began to make up to her, coolly throwing over his first love. By this time he had recovered his power of flight, and after pairing with the new-comer the two went away to spend the honeymoon and look for a suitable residence in the country. The ragged daw lived on with the rooks for a few weeks longer, then she too disappeared, being now able to fly. Three or four weeks later, to everybody’s astonishment, they all came back together accompanied by a fourth bird, a male, with which the ragged one had paired. Somewhere roaming about outside of London they had all met, and the ragged female had probably persuaded them to forget past unpleasantnesses and return to the park; at all events they all seemed very friendly and happy. During the summer of 1897 both pairs bred, one in the upper part of the tall spire of St. Mary’s Church, Stoke Newington, which stands close to the main entrance to the park; the other in a building close by.
We see from this that wandering and apparently homeless daws often visit London, and are quickly attracted by any tame unconfined bird of their own species; and that where daws are wanted, an excellent plan is to use a tame bird as a decoy.
It is exceedingly improbable that any of the raptorial species which formerly inhabited London—peregrine falcon, kestrel, and kite—will ever return, but we could have these birds by rearing them by hand from the nest, and allowing them to be unconfined. If well and regularly fed they would remain where they were reared, or if they went away for a season they would most probably return. It would be a great pleasure to see them soaring above or about our buildings, and they would also be useful in keeping down the domestic pigeons, which are now much too numerous and are fast becoming a nuisance in some of the parks, where they devour the food originally intended for the wood-pigeons. The domestic pigeons have a pretty appearance at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Palace, and other large public buildings; in the grassy parks they are out of place and do not look well; furthermore, when we find most, if not all, of these park-haunting birds come from big private houses in the neighbourhood, where they are bred for the table, it is surprising that the park authorities should continue to feed them at the public expense. Let us hope that this abuse will soon be put an end to; also that it will be recognised by the authorities that it is a mistake to keep dovecots in the public parks.
The stock-dove could easily be introduced into London by placing its eggs, which can be obtained at a trifling cost, under both the domestic pigeon and wood-pigeon. It may be that the wood-pigeon would also prove a suitable foster-parent to the turtle-dove. This species is a strict migrant, but if bred in the parks it would no doubt come back annually from its journeys abroad. In any case the experiment is well worth trying.
Before going on to the small birds which may be introduced or encouraged to settle, something need be said about the ornamental water-fowl of the parks, which might be made more than they are to us, and put to a new use. There is no doubt that just as one daw attracts other daws so do these water-birds attract any of their wild relations which may be passing at night. Mallards, widgeon, and teal, supposed to be wild birds, have been known to appear in some of the parks to pair with the park birds and remain to breed; in a few instances some of these strangers have actually been captured by the keepers and pinioned to prevent them from leaving. This was a great mistake; for assuming that the birds really were wild, it is probable that after going away for the winter they would have returned, and might even have brought some of their wild fellows. I believe that our ornamental water-fowl ought never to be pinioned except in the cases of a few rare exotic species. When a bird is pinioned its chief beauty and greatest charm are lost; it is then little more than a domestic bird, or a bird in a cage. Sheldrakes, both common and ruddy, are infinitely more beautiful when flying than when resting on the water; and all wild ducks are seen at their best when, before alighting, they sweep along close to the surface, with wings motionless and depressed, showing the bright beauty-spot. There are, in fact, many unpinioned fowls on the park waters, and some of these birds not only fly about their own ponds, but they occasionally visit the waters of other parks, especially by night, and are well able to find their way back to their own ponds. In some cases they make prolonged visits to other parks. In one London park for the last three years a number of tufted ducks (from eight to a dozen) have made their appearance on the ornamental water each spring, and have remained until the autumn, then disappeared; it is not known where they spend the winter. In the same park a pair of pinioned ruddy sheldrakes were kept. In April 1897 they were joined by a third bird, a drake, in very beautiful plumage. After being two or three days in their company, he attacked the pinioned drake with great fury and drove him off, and took possession of the duck. The ornamental water of another park has been visited at odd times by several Egyptian geese, sometimes appearing regularly every morning and departing in the evening, at other times making long stays; and I have heard of many other instances of the kind.
MOORHEN AND CHICKS
There are many and good reasons for believing that water-fowl hatched and reared in the parks would, if they went away for a period in autumn and winter, return in spring to breed. A fair trial might be made by giving the eggs of wild birds—widgeon, teal, gadwell, shoveller, and other suitable British species, to the park ducks when breeding. In this way a London race of each or of a few of these species might be established; like our black-headed gulls, moorhens, and dabchicks, they would be wild birds, although not shy, and they would certainly be more beautiful and vigorous and give us more pleasure than their pinioned relations. Coots hatched and reared by the moorhens would give us another wild bird well suited to thrive in the park lakes; and I will venture to add that we might even get the great crested grebe, by placing its eggs in the dabchicks’ nests. The breeding habits of these two species are identical; they differ very considerably in size, but there is not so great a disparity between little grebe and great grebe as there is between the cuckoo and its foster-parent.