A Year with the Birds / Third Edition, Enlarged

by W. Warde Fowler

Bonelli’s Warbler.

CHAPTER IV.
A MIDLAND VILLAGE: GARDEN AND MEADOW.

It is a curious fact that, when I return from Switzerland, that I am at first unable to discover anything in our English midlands but a dead level of fertile plain. The eye has accustomed itself in the course of two or three weeks to expect an overshadowing horizon of rock and snow, and when that is removed, it fails to perceive the lesser differences of height. This fact is an excellent illustration of the abnormal condition of things in the Alps, affecting the life both of the plants and animals which inhabit them; and it also shows us how very slight are the differences of elevation in most parts of our own island. In ordinary weather, the temperature does not greatly differ in an English valley and on an English ridge of hill, and the question whether their fauna and flora vary, is one rather of soil than of temperature. Still, there are manifest differences to be observed as we proceed from river-valleys to rising wooded ground, and from this again to a bare hill-side; and it may be interesting, after our walk in the Alps, to note the bird-life of an English rural district which is provided with all three, recalling dimly and perhaps fancifully the three regions of the Alpine world.

The traveller by railway from Oxford to Worcester leaves the broad meadows of the Isis about three miles above Oxford, and after crossing a spur of higher land, strikes the little river Evenlode at Handborough Station, not far from its junction with the Isis at Cassington. This Evenlode is the next considerable stream westward of the Cherwell, and just as the line of the latter is followed by the Birmingham railway, so the line to Worcester keeps closely to the Evenlode for nearly twenty miles, only leaving it at last in its cradle in the uplands of Worcestershire. Westward again of the Evenlode, the Windrush comes down from the northern Cotswolds, to join the Isis at Witney, and further still come Leach, and Coln, and others, bringing the clear cold water in which trout delight, from the abundant springs at Northleach and Andoversford. But the Evenlode is not a Cotswold stream, though trout may still be caught in it where it has not been polluted; it skirts for many miles the north-eastern slope of the Cotswolds, which may be seen from the train-windows closing in the horizon all the way from Shipton-under-Wychwood to Evesham and Worcester, but it has the slow current and muddy bottom of a lowland stream, and runs throughout its course among water-meadows liable to flood.

For the first few miles of its course it is little more than a ditch; but shortly after passing the historic lawns of Daylesford, it is joined by two other streams, one descending from the slope of the Cotswolds, and the other from the high ground of Chipping Norton eastwards. These two join the Evenlode exactly at the point where it enters Oxfordshire, and the combination produces a little river of some pretension, which enjoys a somewhat more rapid descent for some miles from this junction, and almost prattles as it passes the ancient abbey-lands of Bruerne and the picturesque spire of Shipton church.

Close to the point of junction, on a long tongue of land which is a spur of Daylesford hill, and forms a kind of promontory bounded by the meadows of the Evenlode and the easternmost of its two tributaries, lies the village where much of my time is spent in vacations. It is more than four hundred feet above the sea, and the hills around it rise to double that height; but it lies in an open country, abounding in corn, amply provided with hay-meadows by the alluvial deposit of the streams already mentioned, and also within easy reach of long stretches of wild woodland. For all along the valley the observant passenger will have been struck with the long lines of wood which flank the Evenlode at intervals throughout its course; he passes beneath what remains of the ancient forest of Wychwood, and again after a considerable gap he has the abbey-woods of Bruerne on his left, and once more after an interval of cultivation his view is shut in by the dense fox-covers of Bledington and Oddington, the border villages of Gloucestershire. It is just at this interval between Bruerne and Bledington that the junction of the two streams with the Evenlode takes place; so that from this point, or from the village already spoken of, it is but a short distance to an ample and solitary woodland either up or down the valley. Beyond that woodland lies a stretch of pasture land which brings you to the foot of the long ridge of hill forming the north-eastern boundary and bulwark of the Cotswolds, and hiding from us the little old-world towns of Burford and Northleach. We have therefore within a radius of five or six miles almost every kind of country in which birds rejoice to live. We have water-meadow, corn-land, woods, and hills, and also here and there a few acres of scrubby heath and gorse; and the only requisite we lack is a large sheet of water or marshy ground, which might attract the waders and sea-birds so commonly found near Oxford. We are neither too far north to miss the southern birds, nor too far south to see the northern ones occasionally; we might with advantage be a little farther east, but we are not too far west to miss the Nightingale from our coverts.

Such a position and variety would be sure to produce a long list of birds, both residents and visitors; not only because there are localities at hand suited to be their dwelling-places during the whole or a part of the year, but because they offer the change of scene and food which is essential to the welfare of many species. An open country of heath and common will not abound in birds of more than a very few species, unless it is varied with fertile oases, with garden, orchard, or meadow; for many of the birds that delight to play about in the open, and rove from place to place during the first few months of their existence, will need for their nests and young the shelter of trees and shrubs. While the young are growing, they require incessant feeding, and the food must be at hand which they can best assimilate and digest; and it does not follow that this is the same as that which the parents habitually eat, or which the young themselves will most profit by when they are fledged. The relation between the movements of birds and their food is a problem which has not, so far as I know, been fully investigated as yet. Other problems of absorbing interest at present occupy the attention of men of science. The sure foothold which has been gained by the theory of development has placed the great questions of classification in a new light, and brought the structure of animals into the foreground; the microscope each year discovers new wonders in the development of that structure from the earliest visible germ of life, and the habits of the living animal,[26] and the relations of animals to each other, have consequently fallen a little into the background. No ornithological researches, so far as I am aware, have been lately published in this country, which can compare with those of Sir J. Lubbock on the intelligence of insects. Birds are in fact an extremely difficult subject for minute study; abundant leisure at the proper season, indefatigable perseverance, and the means and opportunity of travel, are its necessary conditions, which are denied to most men. And, it must be added, a considerable sacrifice of the life and happiness of birds is another sine qua non of investigations of this kind; and thus the growing sensitiveness of cultivated men is brought into conflict with the ardour of the enthusiastic savant.

But to return to my village; it is astonishing how many birds, in spite of the presence of their deadliest enemies, boys and cats, will come into our gardens to build their nests, if only fair opportunities are offered them. In a garden close to my own, whose owner has used every means in his power to attract them,[27] there were last May fifty-three nests, exclusive of those of swallows and martins. The garden is not more than two or three acres in extent, including the little orchard which adjoins it; but by planting great numbers of thick bushes and coniferous trees, and by placing flower-pots, old wooden boxes, and other such odds and ends, in the forks of the branches at a considerable height from the ground, he has inspired them with perfect confidence in his goodwill and ‘philornithic’ intentions. The fact that a pair of Missel-thrushes reared their young here only a few feet from the ground, and close to a stable and a much-frequented walk, shows that even birds of wild habits of life may be brought to repose trust in man by attention to their wants and wishes. The Blackcap, which almost always nests in woods, had here found it possible to take up its quarters close to the fruit it loves; and of all the commoner kinds the nests were legion. Three Greenfinches built in the same tree one over another, the nests being little more than a foot apart; a Wren had so closely fitted a little box with the usual materials of its nest, that the door corresponded with the only opening in the box; a Robin had found an ample basis of construction in the deserted nest of a Blackbird. The only bird that had been forbidden access to this Eden was the Bullfinch; he duly made his appearance, but was judged to be too dangerous to the buds of the fruit-trees. Siskins and Hawfinches have occasionally looked into this garden; but the Hawfinch has never bred here, and for some unexplained reason the same is the case with the Redstart.

In my own garden, within a few feet of the house, this last-mentioned friend found a very convenient abode in a hole in my largest apple-tree. The parents became very tame, and when they knew their young were discovered, made very little scruple about exposing themselves in going in and out. The food they brought their young, whenever we happened to see it, was a small green caterpillar; and I sincerely hope we may have them again next year, both for the benefit to my garden and for the pleasure they give me.[28] May the sad loss of one fledgling depart from their memory before next summer! It was just launched into the world when it fell a victim to my dog, for I had seen it in the nest only an hour or two before; I had left strict injunctions for the confinement of all domestic animals as soon as the young were seen to leave the nest, but had not expected them to face the world so soon. This was a beautiful little bird, showing already the rich russet colour in what he had of tail; his legs and claws were of extreme slightness and delicacy, and his whole colouring and framework was far more engaging than is the case with most young birds of his age. He had already picked up, or had been given by his mother, a pebble or two to assist his digestion.