A Year with the Birds / Third Edition, Enlarged

by W. Warde Fowler

The Redstart was not a very common bird about us until about three years ago, but now its gentle song is heard in May in almost every garden and well-hedged field. In August and September the young birds are everywhere seen showing their conspicuous fire-tails as they flit in and out of the already fast-browning hedges; yet three or four years ago my daily walks did not discover more than a few dozen in a summer. What can be the cause of this surprising increase of population? If it is anything that has happened in this country, such as the passing of the Wild Birds’ Protection Act, we must suppose that the same individuals which breed and are born here in one spring, return here the next year; i. e. our supply of this summer migrant depends on the treatment it receives here, and not upon the number of Redstarts available in the world generally. I am inclined indeed to think, though it is difficult to prove it, that the wholesale slaughter of young birds in our neighbourhood is less horrible than it used to be before the passing of the Act; but when we remember that other creatures, certain butterflies, for example, whose relations to man never greatly differ from year to year, are found to be much more abundant in some years than others, the more rational conclusion seems to be, that an increase or decrease of numbers depends, in the case of migrating birds, on certain causes which are beyond the reach of mankind to regulate. What these may be it is possible only to guess. A famine in the winter quarters would rapidly decimate the numbers of those individuals which were with us last summer, and we cannot tell whether the deficiency would be supplied from other sources. Even a severe storm in the spring or autumn journey would destroy an immense number of birds so tender and fragile; and we must not forget that these journeys take place at the very seasons when storms are especially frequent and violent. Any very serious alteration in the methods of dealing with the land in this country, such as the substitution of railings or ditches for hedges, or the wholesale felling of woods and copses, would also most certainly affect the numbers of this and most other birds; but in the course of the last few years no such change of any magnitude has taken place, and the increase of the Redstarts must be put down, I think, to causes taking effect beyond the sea.

The only really annoying destruction of hedges in our immediate neighbourhood within my recollection is one for which I ought always to be grateful, for it brought me a sight of the only Black Redstart I have ever seen in England. I mentioned in the last chapter that this little bird, which is so abundant on the Continent all through the summer, never comes to this country except in the autumn, and then only in very small numbers, chiefly along the south-west coast. It is generally seen in Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall in November, but never breeds there, and it is seldom that a straggler finds his way further north. On the 6th of November, 1884, I was returning from a morning walk, and about a mile from the village came to a spot which a few years ago was one of the prettiest in the country-side. Here one road crosses another, and formerly the crossing was enclosed by high hedges and banks, forming a comfortable nook where the hounds used to meet, and where the Sand-martins bored their way into the light and sandy soil. A land-agent descended here one day, like a bird of ill omen, and swept the hedges away, filling their place with long lines of bare and ugly wall; the martins sought a lodging elsewhere, for they could no longer feed their young with the insect-life of the hedgerows; the hounds followed their example, and all my associations with the spot were broken. But it was upon this very wall, new, useful, straight, and intensely human, that this rare little bird chose to sun himself that bright November morning. A thousand times have I seen him on the old gray fern-covered walls of the Alpine passes, but never did I expect to see him on this hideous ‘improvement’ of civilization. Except that he was silent and alone, he seemed as much at home here as on the flowery slopes of the Engstlen-alp. There is nothing that man can erect that is too uncomely for the birds.[29]

I have digressed for a moment to tell this tale of the Black Redstart, but I have hardly yet done with the village itself. We have of course plenty of Robins and Hedge-sparrows breeding in our gardens, and in the nests of these the Cuckoo is fond of depositing its egg. It would not be always true to say that the Cuckoo lays its egg in its victim’s nest, for in some instances at least the egg is dropped from the bill. A Robin built its nest in a hole in the wall of my garden, several inches deep, and with a rather narrow entrance; several eggs were laid and all was going well. It was three or four days from my first knowledge of the nest to my second visit, when I was greatly annoyed to find all the eggs but one on the ground at the foot of the wall, broken to fragments. I accused the boy who filled the office of boot-cleaner; he was more or less of a pickle, but he positively denied all complicity. Meanwhile in my indignation I had forgotten to examine the remaining egg; but the mystery was soon solved. Noticing that the Robins had not deserted, I looked again after awhile, and found a young Cuckoo. The ugly wretch grew rapidly, and soon became too big for the nest, so we hung him up in a basket on a branch, where the Robins continued to feed him. His aspect and temper were those of a young fiend. If you looked at him he would swell with passion, and if you put your finger towards him, he would rise up in the basket and ‘go for it.’ One fine morning he disappeared, and was never heard of more.

In this case the egg was unquestionably deposited with the bill, while the same instrument must have been used to eject the Robin’s eggs, thus saving the young Cuckoo when hatched the trouble of getting rid of the young Robins by muscular exertions. Next year a Cuckoo’s egg was laid in a Hedge-sparrow’s nest in an adjoining garden; but the intended foster-parents wisely deserted, and I was able to take possession of the nest and eggs. Every year in June we are sure to notice a persistent cuckooing close by us, and nearly every year an egg is found in some nest in the village. Once (I think it was at the time when the Robin was the victim) boys reported that they saw a cuckoo sitting on a bough hard by, with an egg in its bill. There is no doubt whatever that the bill can hold the egg, which is hardly as large as a starling’s.[30]

We have another much smaller bird in the village which can hold large objects between its mandibles—objects almost as large, and sometimes more bulky, than the egg of the Cuckoo. This is the Nuthatch, which will carry away from a window any number of hard dessert nuts, and store them up in all sorts of holes and corners, where they are sometimes found still unbroken. These plump and neat little birds, whose bills and heads and necks seem all of a piece, while their bodies and tails are not of much account, have been for years accustomed to come for their dinners to my neighbour’s windows.[31] One day while sitting with my friend, Col. Barrow, F.R.S. (to whom the Oxford Museum is indebted for a most valuable present of Arctic Birds), we set the Nuthatches a task which at first puzzled them. After letting them carry off a number of nuts in the usual way, we put the nuts into a glass tumbler. The birds arrived, they saw the nuts, and tried to get at them, but in vain. Some invisible obstacle was in the way; they must have thought it most uncanny. They poked and prodded, and departed ἀπρακτοὶ. Again they came, and a third time, with the like result. At last one of them took his station on a bit of wood erected for perching purposes just over the lintel; he saw the nuts below him, down he came upon the tumbler’s edge, and in a moment his long neck was stretched downwards and the prize won. The muscular power of the bird is as well shown by this feat, as his perseverance and sagacity by the discovery of the trick; for holding on by his prehensile claws to the edge of the tumbler, he contrived to seize with his bill a large nut placed in the bottom of it, without any assistance from his wings; the length of the tumbler being little less than that of the bird. But after all, this was no more than a momentary use of the same posture in which he is often to be seen, as he runs down the trunks of trees in search of insects.

The Spotted Flycatcher is another little bird which abounds in our gardens and orchards; it is always pleasant to watch, and its nest is easy to find. One pair had the audacity to build on the wall of the village school: it was much as if a human being should take up his residence in a tiger’s jungle, but if I recollect right, the eggs and young escaped harm. Another pair placed their nest on a sun-dial in Col. Barrow’s garden, as late as mid-July. This Flycatcher is the latest of all the summer migrants to arrive on our shores;[32] the males and females seem to come together, and begin the work of nesting at once, i.e. in the middle of May; if the nest is taken, as was probably the case with this pair, the second brood would not be hatched till July. The bird is singularly silent, never getting (within my experience) beyond an oft-repeated and half-whispered phrase, which consists of three notes, or rather sounds, and no more; the first is higher and louder than the others, which are to my mind much like that curious sound of disappointment or anxiety which we produce by applying the tongue to the roof of the mouth, and then suddenly withdrawing it. But is the Flycatcher always and everywhere a silent bird?[33] It is most singular that he should be unattractive in colour also—gray and brown and insignificant; but perhaps in the eyes of his wife even his quiet voice and gray figure may have weight.

Nest on sun-dial.—[p. 130].

This Flycatcher is an excellent study for a young ornithologist. He is easily seen, perching almost always on a leafless bough or railing, whence he may have a clear view, and be able to pick and choose his flies; and he will let you come quite close, without losing his presence of mind. His attitude is so unique, that I can distinguish his tiny form at the whole length of the orchard; he sits quietly, silently, with just a shade of tristesse about him, the tail slightly drooped and still, the head, with longish narrow bill, bent a little downwards, for his prey is almost always below him; suddenly this expectant repose is changed into quick and airy action, the little wings hover here and there so quickly that you cannot follow them, the fly is caught, and he returns with it in his bill to his perch, to await a safe moment for carrying it to its young. All this is done so unobtrusively by a little grayish-brown bird with grayish-white breast, that hundreds of his human neighbours never know of his existence in their gardens. He is wholly unlike his handsomer and livelier namesake, the Pied Flycatcher, in all those outward characteristics which attract the inexperienced eye; but the essential features are alike in both, the long wing, the bill flat at the base, and the gape of the mouth furnished with strong hairs, which act like the backward-bent teeth of the pike in preventing the escape of the prey.