The birds themselves did not grieve overlong at their loss: the day after the nest was robbed the cock was heard singing—and he continued to sing every day from his favourite tree, an old black poplar growing outside the sweetbriar hedge in front of the cottage.
About this bird of a brave and cheerful disposition, more will have to be said in the next chapter. It is, or was, my desire to describe events in the valley at this changeful period from late July to October in the order of their occurrence, but in all the rest of the present chapter, which will be given to the river birds exclusively, the order must be broken.
Water-birds
Undoubtedly the three commonest water-birds inhabiting inland waters throughout England are the coot, moor-hen, and dabchick, or little grebe; and on account of their abundance and general distribution they are almost as familiar as our domestic birds. Yet one never grows tired of seeing and hearing them, as we do of noting the actions of other species that inhabit the same places; and the reason for this—a very odd reason it seems!—is because these three common birds, members of two orders which the modern scientific zoologist has set down among the lowest, and therefore, as he tells us, most stupid, of the feathered inhabitants of the globe, do actually exhibit a quicker intelligence and greater variety in their actions and habits than the species which are accounted their superiors.
The coot is not so abundant as the other two; also he is less varied in his colour, and less lively in his motions, and consequently attracts us less. The moor-hen is the most engaging, as well as the commonest—a bird concerning which more entertaining matter has been related in our natural histories than of any other native species. And I now saw a great deal of him, and of the other two as well. From the cottage windows, and from the lawn outside, one looked upon the main current of the river, and there were the birds always in sight; and when not looking one could hear them. Without paying particular attention to them their presence in the river was a constant source of interest and amusement.
At one spot, where the stream made a slight bend, the floating water-weeds brought down by the current were always being caught by scattered bulrushes growing a few feet from the edge; the arrested weeds formed a minute group of islets, and on these convenient little refuges and resting-places in the waterway, a dozen or more of the birds could be seen at most times. The old coots would stand on the floating weeds and preen and preen their plumage by the hour. They were like mermaids, for ever combing out their locks, and had the clear stream for a mirror. The dull-brown, white-breasted young coots, now fully grown, would meanwhile swim about picking up their own food. The moor-hens were with them, preening and feeding, and one had its nest there. It was a very big conspicuous nest, built up on a bunch of floating weeds, and formed, when the bird was sitting on its eggs, a pretty and curious object; for every day fresh bright-green sedge leaves were plucked and woven round it, and on that high bright-green nest, as on a throne, the bird sat, and when I went near the edge of the water, she (or he) would flirt her tail to display the snowy-white under-feathers, and nod her head, and stand up as if to display her pretty green legs, so as to let me see and admire all her colours; and finally, not being at all shy, she would settle quietly down again.
Little grebes
The little grebes, too, had chosen that spot to build on. Poor little grebes! how they worked and sat, and built and sat again, all the summer long. And all along the river it was the same thing—the grebes industriously making their nests, and trying ever so hard to hatch their eggs; and then at intervals of a few days the ruthless water-keeper would come by with his long fatal pole to dash their hopes. For whenever he saw a suspicious-looking bunch of dead floating weeds which might be a grebe's nest, down would come the end of the pole on it, and the eggs would be spilt out of the wet bed, and rolled down by the swift water to the sea. And then the birds would cheerfully set to work again at the very same spot: but it was never easy to tell which bunch of wet weeds their eggs were hidden in. Watching with a glass I could see the hen on her eggs, but if any person approached she would hastily pull the wet weeds from the edge over them, and slip into the water, diving and going away to some distance. While the female sat the male was always busy, diving and catching little fishes; he would dive down in one spot, and suddenly pop up a couple of yards away, right among the coots and moor-hens. This Jack-in-the-box action on his part never upset their nerves. They took not the slightest notice of him, and were altogether a more or less, happy family, all very tolerant of each other's little eccentricities.
The little grebe fished for himself and for his sitting mate; he never seemed so happy and proud as when he was swimming to her, patiently sitting on her wet nest, with a little silvery fish in his beak. He also fished for old decaying weeds, which he fetched up from the bottom to add to the nest. Whenever he popped up among or near the other birds with an old rag of a weed in his beak, one or two of the grown-up young coots would try to take it from him; and seeing them gaining on him he would dive down to come up in another place, still clinging to the old rag half a yard long; and again the chase would be renewed, and again he would dive; until at last, after many narrow escapes and much strategy, the nest would be gained, and the sitting bird would take the weed from him and draw it up and tuck it round her, pleased with his devotedness, and at the sight of his triumph over the coots. As a rule, after giving her something—a little fish, or a wet weed to pull up and make herself comfortable with—they would join their voices in that long trilling cry of theirs, like a metallic, musical-sounding policeman's rattle.
It was not in a mere frolicsome spirit that the young coots hunted the dabchick with his weed, but rather, as I imagine, because the white succulent stems of aquatic plants growing deep in the water are their favourite food; they are accustomed to have it dived for by their parents and brought up to them, and they never appear to get enough to satisfy them; but when they are big, and their parents refuse to slave for them, they seem to want to make the little grebes their fishers for succulent stems.