"No," he replied. He stood the cage on a chair, and the bird was no sooner in it than his little sister, a child of two who was fidgeting round, pulled the door open and out flew the kingfisher!
Birds at the cottage
Returning to the cottage, whether from the high down, the green valley, or the silent, shady wood, it always seemed a favourite dwelling- or nesting-place of the birds, where indeed they most abounded. Now that bright genial weather had come after the cold and storm to make them happy, the air was full of their chirpings and twitterings, their various little sounds of conversation and soliloquy, with an occasional bright, loud, perfect song. It was generally the wren, whose lyric changes not through all the changeful year, that uttered it. It was this small brown bird, too, that amused me most with the spectacle of his irrepressible delight in the new warmth and sunlight. There were about a dozen wrens at the cottage, and some of them were in the habit of using their old undamaged nests in the ivy and woodbine as snug little dormitories. But they cared nothing for the human inhabitants of the cottage; they were like small birds that had built their nest in the interstices of an eagles' eyrie, who knew nothing and cared nothing about the eagles. Occasionally, when a wren peeped in from the clustering ivy or hopped on to a window-sill and saw us inside, he would scold us for being there with that sharp, angry little note of his, and then fly away. Nor would he take a crumb from the table spread out of doors every day for the birds that disdained not to be fed. The ivy and creepers that covered the cottage abounded with small spiders, caterpillars, earwigs, chrysalids, and what not; that was good enough for him—Thank you for your kind intentions!
Looking from a window at a bed of roses a few feet away, I discovered that the wren took as much pleasure in a dust bath as any bird. He would come to the loose soil and select a spot where the bed sloped towards the sun, and then wriggle about in the earth with immense enjoyment. Dusting himself, he would look like a miniature partridge with a round body not much bigger than a walnut. After dusting would come the luxurious sun-bath, when, with feathers raised and minute wings spread out and beak gaping, the little thing would lie motionless and panting; but at intervals of three or four seconds a joyful fit of shivering would seize him, and at last, the heat becoming too great, he would shake himself and skip away, looking like a brown young field-vole scuttling into cover.
This bright and beautiful period came to an end on 22nd August, and we then had unsettled weather with many sudden changes until 3rd September—cloudy oppressive days, violent winds, thunderstorms, and days of rain and sunshine, and morning and evening rainbows; it was a mixture of April, midsummer, and October.
This changeful period over, there was fine settled weather; it was the golden time of the year, and it continued till our departure on the last day of September.
The fruit season was late this year—nearly a fortnight later than in most years; and when the earliest, the wild arum, began to ripen, the birds—thrushes and chaffinches were detected—fell upon and devoured all the berries, regardless of their poisonous character almost before their light-green had changed to vivid scarlet. Then came the deep crimson fruit of the honeysuckle; it ripened plentifully on the plants growing against the cottage, and the cole-tits came in bands to feed on it. It was pretty to see these airy little acrobats clinging to the twine-like pendent sprays hanging before an open window or door. They were like the little birds in a Japanese picture which one has seen. Then came the elderberries, which all fruit-loving birds feast on together. But the tits and finches and warblers and thrushes were altogether out-numbered by the starlings that came in numbers from the pasture-lands to take part in the great fruit-feast.
An old chalk pit
The elder is a common tree here, but at the cottage we had, I think, the biggest crop of fruit in the neighbourhood; and it now occurs to me that the vast old chalk pit in which the trees grew has not yet been described, and so far has only been once mentioned incidentally. Yet it was a great place, but a few yards away at the side of the old lime trees and the small protecting fence. The entrance to it and its wide floor was on a level with the green valley, while at its upper end it formed a steep bank forty feet high. It was doubtless a very old pit, with sides which had the appearance of natural cliffs and were overhung and draped with thorn-trees, masses of old ivy, and traveller's joy. Inside it was a pretty tangled wilderness; on the floor many tall annuals flourished—knapweed and thistle and dark mullein and teazel, six to eight feet high. Then came some good-sized trees—ash and oak—and thorn, bramble and elder in masses. It was a favourite breeding-place of birds of many species; even the red-backed shrike had nested there within forty yards of a human habitation, and the kingfisher had safely reared his young, unsuspected by the barbarous water-keeper. The pit, too, was a shelter in cold rough weather and a roosting-place at night. Now the fruit was ripe, it was a banqueting-place as well, and the native birds were joined by roving outsiders, missel-thrushes in scores, and starlings in hundreds. The noise they produced—a tangle of so many various semi-musical voices—sounded all day long; and until the abundant fruit had all been devoured the chalk pit was a gigantic green and white bowl full to overflowing with sunshine, purple juice, and melody.
The biggest crop of this fruit, out of the old chalk pit, was in the garden of a cottage in the village, close to the river, occupied by an old married couple, hard workers still with spade and hoe, and able to make a Living by selling the produce of their garden. It was a curious place; fruit trees and bushes, herbs, vegetables, flowers, all growing mixed up anyhow, without beds or walks or any line of demarcation between cultivated plants and brambles and nettles on either side and the flags and sedges at the lower end by the river. In the midst of the plot, just visible among the greenery, stood the small, old, low-roofed thatched cottage, where the hens were free to go in and lay their eggs under the bed or in any dark corner they preferred. A group of seven or eight old elder-trees grew close to the cottage, their branches bent and hanging with the weight of the purpling clusters.