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CHAPTER VIII BIRD LIFE IN WINTER
Land birds—Gulls in bad weather—Jackdaw and donkeys—Birds in the field—Yellowhammers—A miracle of the sun—The common sparrow—An old disused tin-mine—Sparrows roosting in a pit—Magpies' language—Goldcrests in the furze bushes—The Cornish wren—The sad little Meadow Pipit.
A GOOD deal of space has already been given to the sea-birds of this coast, but the land-birds deserve a chapter too. I do not wish, however, to give an account or a list of all of them, but would rather follow Carew's example, and note only "such as minister some particular cause of remembrance." The reader who would have more than this must seek for it in one of those "hasty schedules or inventories of God's property made by some clerk"—the local ornithologies and lists of species in the Victorian and other histories and various other works. On this exposed, wind-beaten, treeless coast country one does not expect to find an abundant or varied bird life; nevertheless in this unpromising place and in winter I had altogether a very pleasant time with the feathered people.
When the weather was too bad for the cliffs the gulls were driven inland. Gannets and cormorants could endure it; the sea was their true home and abiding-place and they were not to be torn from it; but the vagrant, unsettled and somewhat unballasted gulls would not or could not stay, and were like froth of the breakers which is caught up and whirled inland by the blast. On such days (and they were many) the gulls were all over the land, wandering about in their usual aimless manner, or in flocks seen resting on the grass in the shelter of a stone wall, or mixing loosely with companies of daws, rooks, peewits and other skilful worm and grub hunters, waiting idly for the chance of snatching a morsel from a neighbour's beak.
I was a little like the gulls in my habits: on fine days the cliffs and cliff castles were my favourite haunts; in very rough weather my rambles were mostly away from the sea, where I had my old companions of the sea wall, the gulls and daws, still with me. So much has already been said of this last species in former chapters that I might appear to be giving him too great prominence to bring him in again. Yet I must do so just to relate a little scene I witnessed in which this bird had a principal part, the other characters being donkeys.
The donkey is almost the only domestic creature one meets with out on the rough high moor and among the stony hills. Cows and horses are occasionally seen, but they do not strike one as native to the place as the donkey does. He is a sort of link between the homestead and the wilderness. The donkey is man's poor, patient, anciently-broken creature, but when he roams abroad in quest of that tough and juiceless fodder on the desolate heath and hillsides—a food thought good enough for the likes of him, or the likes of he, as his master would say—he fits into the scene as the cow and horse certainly do not. He is not so big, and his rough, dirty or dusty coat of dull indeterminate greys and earthy and heather-like browns makes him harmonise with his surroundings. His long-drawn reiterated droning and whistling cry strikes one, too, as a voice of the wild incult places. On this account I have a very friendly feeling for him, and was always pleased at meeting with donkeys in my solitary walks, which was often enough, as most persons keep one or more in these parts. He is a good servant, and costs nothing to keep. Frequently I turn aside to speak to them, and as a rule they turn their backs or hinder parts on me, as much as to say that they have enough of human beings in the village: here they prefer to be left alone. But when I produce an apple from my pocket they at once think better of it, and gather round me very much interested in the apple, and quite willing for the sake of the apple to let me rub their noses and pull their ears.