A Year with the Birds / Third Edition, Enlarged

by W. Warde Fowler

During the summer, the parts of Switzerland north of the trench and its two barriers, are occupied by countless fragile birds, which have come from Africa over Italy, and must return there in the autumn. How do they come, and how do they return? Of their arrival I have had no personal experience, and shall therefore say nothing; for it does not follow that birds always come and go in exactly the same manner and by exactly the same route. But of the departure of some of them I can now tell something, having had the evidence of my own eyes that a double barrier such as I have described is not a fatal obstacle to their progress. The main facts of the migration have indeed been long known, and only too well known, to the inhabitants of the district; for the people of Canton Tessin, which consists of the valleys to the south of the central part of the Alps, sharing the tastes of their neighbours the Italians, were until a few years ago in the habit of lying in wait for the birds, and snaring them in vast numbers. When the hold of the Central Federal Government over the individual Cantons was made stronger a few years ago, the same absolute prohibition of wanton slaughter was extended to this canton, which had long been respected in the others; and in spite of a cantonal appeal to be allowed to revert to the old licence, the “Bund” held its own, and succeeded in protecting the migrants. No bird may now be killed at any time of the year in any part of Switzerland, without either a game licence, of which the cost is considerable, or a permission to procure specimens for a scientific object.

We took no gun with us on this occasion, being more anxious to observe movements than to identify species. My plan was, after noting the bird-population of the lower levels, which we called Region No. 1, to pass through the northern barrier by the Grimsel or the St. Gotthard, and take my station at the head of one of these passes, in the highest ground of the great trench, and there to look about me, and also to make inquiries about the ‘Vögelzug.’ Accordingly, after leaving the lake of Lucerne, I turned in the direction of the great valley of the Aar, or Haslithal, which leads up to the Grimsel Pass, knowing that at Meiringen, which lies in the flat of it, not far from its issue into the lake of Brienz, I should be able to see almost in a single walk what summer migrants were still to be found in it. But I halted for the night at the beautiful village of Lungern, in order to enjoy the walk over to the Haslithal in the early morning of the next day; and here I was met by my old friend Anderegg, who was as eager as myself for a week of diligent observation.

The next morning was one of those which seem to stir the hearts of all living creatures, urging them to the enjoyment of autumn warmth while it lasts, and to the pursuit of food while it is still abundant. We had hardly entered the first pine-wood when Anderegg detected the querulous sibilation of the Crested Tit, and two minutes later we had a little family around us, searching the fir-branches without showing any anxiety at our presence. Shortly afterwards a pair of Ravens passed over us, twisting themselves round as they flew through the morning mist, in a peculiar way, and without any object as far as I could see; and at the same moment a small party of Crossbills on the very top of a pine began to chatter with indignation at the appearance of a possible enemy. A few minutes later my sharp-eared companion heard the voices of the Great Black Woodpecker and of the Greater Spotted Woodpecker (Schild-specht); but the forest was here so large and dense that we were obliged to move on without seeing either. Passing slowly upwards, and enlivened by the close neighbourhood of Jays, Nutcrackers, Missel-thrushes, and by the occasional song of both Robin and Wren, we arrived near the highest point of the Brünig carriage-road, where it runs for some distance almost at a level, and is carried along the side of a steep ascent, the hollow below it being covered with undergrowth stretching down to sunny meadows, while the pine-forest rises above it sharp and dense. A better position for an ornithologist could hardly be desired; for as he stands at the edge of the road his eye must catch every movement in the bushes below him, while his ear commands for a considerable distance the pine-wood above him. Here I walked up and down for some time, scanning the multitudinous Cole-tits and Marsh-tits which were playing in the cover below the road, and mentally comparing their plumage with that of our British forms of the same species; and while thus occupied, a Great Black Woodpecker, the first I had ever seen alive, hove in sight and fixed himself on a pine at no great distance, enabling me to watch him for some time with my strongest glass, as he went to work on the bark, now and again twisting his head round watchfully, like a Wryneck, and giving me an excellent view of his powerful bill. Presently, with rapid wing-strokes, like those of the Green Woodpecker, he flew over our heads, and was lost in the forest above us. As he flies, he utters a series of laughing notes, and often gives out a prolonged call after settling on a tree. He is a very fine and remarkable bird; as large, said Anderegg, as a fowl, using precisely the same comparison which occurred to Aristotle two thousand years ago.

We then descended rapidly into the Haslithal, where I spent one whole day in noting such of its feathered inhabitants as had not already deserted it, or were likely to stay in it during the winter. The most remarkable feature of this broad and flat hollow in the hills, is the river Aar, which has been artificially confined for several miles within a strong stone embankment. On this particular day the stonework on each side was literally alive with Wagtails; the left bank seemed almost exclusively occupied by the gray species, and the right bank by the white. All these were continually flying out over the swift glacier water, hovering for a few moments as they sought for flies, and then retiring to their station on the bank; and this was going on for the length of a full mile between the two bridges, so that the whole number of Wagtails must have been enormous. I could hardly avoid the conclusion that these birds had collected in view of migration. The Gray Wagtail, Anderegg tells me, is never to be seen here in the winter, and the white species seldom; but as to what becomes of them I am unable as yet to be sure. Perhaps they simply move down the river into the lower and warmer districts of western and northern Switzerland; just as in England also there is a general movement of Wagtails in the autumn from the more mountainous districts into the regions of plain and meadow.

Another unusual sight was the vast assembly of Carrion Crows, which gathered in the evening, first to drink (not in the rushing Aar, but in a stream quiet enough to give me a momentary view of a Kingfisher); then to perch on a number of small fruit-trees, and finally to wheel round and round among the pines and precipices, until they settled down to roost for the night. But for their voices and their black bills, it was hard to believe that they were not rooks; but no rook was visible, and this bird seems almost unknown in the valley. After seeing this strange sight, I find it hard to assent to the universally accepted proposition, that the Crow is never, strictly speaking, a gregarious bird. So constant is their habit here of roosting together, that Anderegg told me that he had more than once, when out hunting at night, been almost deafened with the noise they made when threatened by the gigantic Eagle-owl.

Crossbills on top of pine.—[p. 189].

Of the ordinary summer birds there were few to be seen, though the weather was warm for September. The Chiff-chaff sang now and then from the hotel garden, and a certain number of Willow-warblers were still about the beans and flax in the fields; Bonelli’s Warbler (see [p. 109]) I was quite unable to detect. There were a few Swallows, House-martins, and Crag-martins; Goldfinches in fair abundance, very busy with seeds in the cultivated land; a few Robins, and a solitary Whinchat. I began to fear that I had come too late to witness any considerable migration; for even the Black Redstart, the representative bird of these valleys in summer, was in much smaller numbers than usual. Even the Starlings had all departed to a bird, not to return till March. On the other hand, the birds of the higher regions were already showing a disposition to come down to lower levels; among these the most interesting were the Nutcrackers (often in company with Jays) and the Crossbills. These last-mentioned birds, which are so seldom to be seen in England, were now to be found in the lowest instead of the highest pinewoods, in pairs or in small companies, giving warning of their presence by a rapidly repeated alarm-note. Generally they were on the very top twigs of a pine, where it was difficult to obtain a good sight of them; but one morning Anderegg’s son, who is beginning to pick up his father’s powers of observation, detected a pair on a pine below us, which both his elders had passed by unheeding. They were breakfasting each on the seeds of a cone, and I was able to observe with the glass how admirably the crossed mandibles are adapted for cutting into the heart of the fruit. The plumage of the male was a sober red, less brilliant than it will be next spring; and the female’s dull greenish colouring was hardly recognizable against the pines. The presence of these birds close down to the valleys denoted the rapid approach of a cold season, and it became plain that if I were to catch the southward migrants I must hasten upwards towards St. Gotthard. This I determined to do by the shortest possible route, crossing the Susten Pass eastwards into the Reuss valley at Wasen, and so getting easily to the highest point of the great trench.

The Alps have a beauty of their own in September, even when there are few flowers left, and the snow has long disappeared in all the highest pastures. This is the time when the second crop of grass is cut; and the mowing leaves a short and beautiful mossy golden turf, which shines brightly in the sun, and lies softly and smoothly where a pine or a boulder casts its shadow on the ground. The walk through the Gadmenthal up to the Susten Pass was one to be remembered for beauty, though not ornithologically productive. The only curiosity that I saw was a Creeper running up a house; a very natural proceeding on the part of the bird, where the houses are of wood, containing abundance of insects in the crannies.[46] The great curiosity of the valley, the three-toed Woodpecker, whose ‘fatherland’ (as Anderegg called it) is among the highest pine-woods at the head of the valley, would not show himself; though in the village of Gadmen we were told by an inhabitant that he had lately seen no less than seven of this species—a whole family, I suppose—on a single tree. Perhaps they too had come downwards in expectation of the winter. Alpine autumn was indeed around us, and at Gadmen we saw the first signs of the general migration of man, beast, and bird, which takes place at this time of year. A flock of sheep, which had been all the summer on the elevated Wendenalp, had just come down, and was being penned in front of the inn as we arrived. Great part of the population of the valley had assembled to claim their own, and when the penning was done all plunged into the living mass, men, women, boys, and sheep being mixed up in one confused struggle. Anxiety sat upon their faces, for no man knows whether he shall find his own sheep; some wander away and are lost, and some few—a fact of interest to me—are not too big to be carried off by the Golden Eagles that dwell in the vast precipices of the Titlis above the valley.

Above Gadmen the valley rapidly narrows, soon becoming little more than a cleft in the mountains, until it opens out into a pleasant little basin of uneven rocky pasture, much of which has been eaten away by a great mass of glacier which has descended into it within the present century, and is now again rapidly retreating. In this little basin—the Stein-alp, as it is appropriately called—is an excellent little inn; and here is the very place to catch the migrants of the Hasli and Gadmen valleys, if they should be passing this way; for the narrowing of the glen below must bring them all into this little basin, before they rise to the final ascent immediately above the inn. On the morning of September 17, as I was greeting Anderegg, and suggesting to him that we should make a second attempt to find the rare Woodpecker, he informed me with animation that he had seen, first a large collection of small Finches flying overhead, and secondly, a great number of Pipits assembled on the Alp a few minutes’ walk from the house. We at once went to look for these, but they had all disappeared; and we continued our walk downwards in search of the Woodpecker. But we had not gone far when our attention was attracted by a flock of Redstarts, working slowly upwards a little above the path; and turning back again, we followed these for some distance, assuring ourselves that they were no accidental assembly, but must be on their way to the head of the pass, and so onwards to the line of St. Gotthard into Italy. As we arrived again at the inn, we saw the flock of little birds which Anderegg had described in the morning; they were still about the inn, but so restless and so playful that even with a strong glass I could not be certain of their species. My own impression was that they were Redpolls; Anderegg, however, positively asserted that he had caught the voice of Citril and Serin Finches.