A Year with the Birds / Third Edition, Enlarged

by W. Warde Fowler

When the University year is over, usually about mid-June, responsibilities cease almost entirely for a few weeks; and it is sometimes possible to leave the lowlands of England and their familiar birds without delay, and to seek new hunting-grounds on the Continent before the freshness of early summer has faded, and before the world of tourists has begun to swarm into every picturesque hole and corner of Europe. An old-standing love for the Alpine region usually draws me there, sooner or later, wherever I may chance to turn my steps immediately after leaving England. He who has once seen the mountain pastures in June will find their spell too strong to be resisted.

At that early time the herdsmen have not yet reached the higher pastures, and cows and goats have not cropped away the flowers which scent the pure cool breeze. The birds are undisturbed and trustful, and still busy with their young. The excellent mountain-inns are comparatively empty, the Marmots whistle near at hand, and the snow lies often so deep upon footpaths where a few weeks later even the feeblest mountaineer would be at home, that a fox, a badger, or even a little troop of chamois, may occasionally be seen without much climbing. If bad weather assails us on the heights, which are liable even in June to sudden snow-storms and bitter cold, we can descend rapidly into the valleys, to find warmth and a new stratum of bird-life awaiting us. And if persistent wet or cold drives us for a day or two to one of the larger towns, Bern, or Zürich, or Geneva, we can spend many pleasant hours in the museums with which they are provided, studying specimens at leisure, and verifying or correcting the notes we have made in the mountains.

It is a singular fact that I do not remember to have ever seen an Englishman in these museums, nor have I met with one in my mountain walks who had a special interest in the birds of the Alps. Something is done in the way of butterfly-hunting; botanists, or at least botanical tins, are not uncommon. The guide-books have something to say of the geology and the botany of the mountains, but little or nothing of their fauna. I have searched in vain through all the volumes of the Jahrbuch of the Swiss Alpine Club for a single article or paragraph on the birds, and the oracles of the English Alpine Club are no less dumb.

Not that ornithologists are entirely wanting for this tempting region; Switzerland has many, both amateur and scientific. A journal of Swiss ornithology is published periodically. Professor Fatio, of Geneva, one of the most distinguished of European naturalists, has given much time and pains to the birds of the Alpine world, and published many valuable papers on the subject, the results of which have been embodied in Mr. Dresser’s Birds of Europe. But what with the all-engrossing passion for climbing, and the natural indisposition of the young Englishman to loiter in that exhilarating air, it has come to pass that the Anglo-Saxon race has for long past invaded and occupied these mountains for three months in each year, without discovering how remarkable the region is in the movements and characteristics of its animal life.

I myself have been fortunate in having as a companion an old friend, a native of the Oberland, who has all his life been attentive to the plants and animals of his beloved mountains. Johann Anderegg will be frequently mentioned in this chapter, and I will at once explain who he is. A peasant of the lower Hasli-thal, in the canton of Bern, born before the present excellent system of education had penetrated into the mountains, was not likely to have much chance of developing his native intelligence; but I have never yet found his equal among the younger generation of guides, either in variety of knowledge, or in brightness of mental faculty. He taught himself to read and write, and picked up knowledge wherever he found a chance. When his term of military service was over, he took to the congenial life of a guide and “jäger,” in close fellowship with his first cousin and namesake, the famous Melchior, the prince of guides. But a long illness, which sent him for many months to the waters of Leukerbad, incapacitated him for severe climbing, and at the same time gave him leisure for thinking and observing: Melchior outstripped him as a guide, and their companionship, always congenial to both as men possessed of lively minds as well as muscular bodies, has long been limited to an occasional chat over a pipe in winter-time.

But he remained an ardent hunter, and has always been an excellent shot: and it was in this capacity, I believe, that he first became useful to the Professor Fatio whom I mentioned just now. He did much collecting for him, and in the course of their expeditions together, contrived to learn a great deal about plants, insects, and birds, most of which he retains in his old age. There is nothing scientific in his knowledge, unless it be a smattering of Latin names, which he brings out with great relish if with some inaccuracy; but it is of a very useful kind, and is aided by a power of eyesight which is even now astonishing in its keenness. I first made his acquaintance in 1868, and for several years he accompanied my brother and myself in glacier-expeditions in all parts of the Alps; but it has been of late years, since we have been less inclined for strenuous exertion, that I have found his knowledge of natural history more especially useful to me. He is now between sixty and seventy, but on a bracing alp, with a gun on his shoulder, his step is as firm and his enjoyment as intense, as on the day when he took us for our first walk on a glacier, eighteen years ago.

The mention of his gun reminds me, that though my old friend’s eyes and my own field-glasses were of the greatest help to me, I could not always satisfy myself as to the identity of a species; and two years ago I was forced to sacrifice the lives of some six or seven individuals. This, it is worth knowing, is illegal in all parts of Switzerland, and illegal at all times of the year; and I had to obtain a license from the Cantonal Government at Bern, kindly procured for me by another old acquaintance, Herr Immer of Meiringen and the Engstlen-alp, to shoot birds ‘in the cause of science.’ This delighted Anderegg; but at my earnest request he suppressed his sporting instincts, or only gave them rein in fruitless scrambles over rock and snow in search of Ptarmigan and Marmots.

I propose to occupy the latter part of this chapter in taking my readers a short expedition, in company with Anderegg, in search of Alpine birds; but let me first say something of the general conditions and characteristics of bird-life in Switzerland.

And first of the number of species, and abundance of individuals. People sometimes tell me that they never see any birds in the Alps. An elderly German, whose bodily exertions were limited, and whose faculties seemed to turn inwards on himself instead of radiating outwards, could not understand why I should go to Switzerland to study birds—for he could see none. And it is indeed true that they do not swarm there, as with us; in this respect Switzerland is like the rest of the Continent. It is a curious fact, that though we have only lately begun to preserve our small birds by law in the breeding-season, they are far more abundant here than they are in any part of the Continent known to me: and this is the case even with the little delicate migrants, many of which seem to have a preference for England in spite of the risk of the sea-crossing. I remember taking up a position one afternoon by the side of a rushing stream, dividing beautiful hay-meadows, and edged with dwarf willows; and during the half-hour I sat there, I neither saw nor heard a single bird. In such a spot in England there would have been plenty. But this is an exception: the rule is, that you may read wherever you run, if you will keep your eyes and ears open, and learn by experience where chiefly to be on the look-out. Variety is more interesting than numbers; the birds are more obvious from their comparative rarity; and their voices are not lost, as is sometimes the case with us, in a general and unceasing chorus. As regards the number of species in the country, I have never seen an accurate computation of it. But looking over Mr. Dresser’s very useful catalogue of the Birds of Europe, I calculate roughly that it would amount to about three hundred in all; i.e. less by some seventy or eighty than the avi-fauna of the British Islands. This is, however, a remarkably large number for a country that possesses no sea-board and very few of those sea-birds which form so large a contingent in our wonderful British list; and it suggests a few remarks on the causes which bring some birds to the Alps periodically, and have tempted others to make them their permanent home.