morning in the valley—abundance of swifts—unlikeness to other birds—mayfly and swallows—mayfly and swift—bad weather and hail—swallows in the rain—sand-martins—an orphaned blackbird—tamed by feeding—survival of gregarious instinct in young blackbirds—blackbird's good-night—cirl buntings—breeding habits and language—habits of the young—reed-bunting—beautiful weather—the oak in august.
swifts
during the month of july the swift was the most abundant and most constantly before us of all our itchen-valley birds. in the morning he was not there. we had the pigeons then, all three species—ring-dove, stock-dove and turtle-dove—being abundant in the woods on the opposite side of the valley, and from four o'clock to six was the time of their morning concert, when the still air was filled with the human-like musical sound of their multitudinous voices mingled in one voice. an hour or two later, as the air grew warmer, the swifts would begin to arrive to fly up and down the stream incessantly until dark, feasting on the gnats and ephemer? that swarmed over the water during those hot days of late summer. doubtless these birds come every day from all the towns, villages, and farm-houses scattered over a very broad strip of country on either side of the itchen. never had i seen swifts so numerous; looking down on the {265} valley from any point one had hundreds of birds in sight at once, all swiftly flying up and down stream; but when the sight was kept fixed on any one bird, it could be seen that he went but a short distance—fifty to a hundred yards—then turned back. thus each bird had a very limited range, and probably each returned to his accustomed place or beat every day.
these swifts are very much in the angler's way. frequently they get entangled in the line and are brought down, but are seldom injured. during one day's fishing my friend here had three swifts to disengage from his line. on releasing one of these birds he watched its movements, and saw it fly up stream a distance of about forty yards, then double back, mechanically going on with its fly-hunting up and down stream just as if nothing had happened.
it may be said of swifts, as bates said of hummingbirds, that, mentally, they are more like bees than birds. the infallible, unchangeable way in which they, machine-like, perform all their actions, and their absolute unteachableness, are certainly insect-like. they are indeed so highly specialised and perfected in their own line, and, on account of their marvellous powers of flight, so removed from all friction in that atmosphere in which they live and move, above the complex and wit-sharpening conditions in which the more terrestrial creatures of their class exist, as to be practically independent of experience.
it is known that for some time the mayfly has {266} been decreasing, and in places disappearing altogether from these hampshire streams, and it is believed and said by some of those who are concerned at these changes that the swallow is accountable for them. i do not know whether they have invented this brilliant idea themselves or have taken it ready-made from the water-keeper. probably the last, since he, the water-keeper, is apt to regard all creatures that come to the waters where his sacred fishes are with a dull, hostile suspicion, though in some cases he is not above adding to his income by taking a few trout himself—not indeed with the dry fly, which is useless at night, but with the shoe-net. in any case the question of exterminating the swallows in all the villages near the rivers has been seriously considered. now, it is rather odd that this notion about the swallow—the martin is of course included—should have got about just when this bird has itself fallen on evil times and is decreasing with us. this decrease has, in all parts of the country best known to me, become increasingly rapid during the last few years, and is probably due to new and improved methods of taking the birds wholesale during migration in france and spain. putting that matter aside, i should like to ask those gentlemen who have decreed, or would like to decree, the abolition of the swallow in all the riverside villages, what they propose to do about the swift.
mayfly and swift
one day last june (1902) i was walking with two friends by the itchen, when a little below the village of ovington we sat down to rest and to enjoy a gleam {267} of sunshine which happened to visit the world about noon that day. we sat down on a little wooden bridge over the main current and fell to watching the swifts, which were abundant, flying up and down just over our heads and, swift-like, paying no more heed to us than if we had been three wooden posts or three cows. we noticed that ephemer? of three or four species were rising up, and, borne by a light wind, drifting down-stream towards us and past us; and after watching these flies for some time we found that not one of them escaped. small and grey, or dun, or water-coloured and well-nigh invisible, or large and yellow and conspicuous as they rose and slowly fluttered over the stream, they were seen and snapped up, every one of them, by those fateful sooty-coloured demons of the air, ever streaming by on their swift scythe-shaped wings. not a swallow nor a martin was in sight at that spot.
it is plain, then, that if the mayfly is declining and dying out because some too greedy bird snatches its life before it can lay its eggs to continue the species, or drop upon the water to supply the trout with its proper succulent food, the swift and not the swallow is the chief culprit.
it is equally plain that these (from the angler's point of view) injurious birds are not breeders by the waterside. their numbers are too great: they come, ninety per cent. of them i should say, from farm-houses, villages, and towns at a distance of a good many miles from the water.
the revels of the swifts were brought prematurely {268} to an end by a great change in the weather, which began with a thunderstorm on 27th july, and two days later a greater storm, with hail the size of big marrowfat peas, which fell so abundantly that the little lawn was all white as if snow had fallen. from that time onwards storm succeeded storm, and finally the weather became steadily bad; and we had rough, cold, wet days right on to the 10th of august. it was a terrible time for the poor holiday people all over the country, and bad too for the moulting and late-breeding birds. as a small set-off to all the discomfort of these dreary days, we had a green lawn once more at the cottage. i had made one or two attempts at watering it, but the labour proved too great to a lazy man, and now nature had come with her great watering-pot and restored its spring-like verdure and softness.
during the wettest and coldest days i spent hours watching the swallows and swifts flying about all day long in the rain. these are, indeed, our only summer land-birds that never seek a shelter from the wet, and which are not affected in their flight by a wetted plumage. their upper feathers are probably harder and more closely knit and impervious to moisture than those of other kinds. it may be seen that a swallow or swift, when flying about in the rain, at short intervals gives himself a quick shake as if to throw off the raindrops. then, too, the food and constant exercise probably serve to keep them warmer than they would be sitting motionless in a dry place. swifts, we sometimes see, are numbed {269} and even perish of cold during frosty nights in spring; i doubt that the cold ever kills them by day when they can keep perpetually moving.
sand-martins
day by day, during this long spell of summer wet and cold, these birds diminished in number, until they were almost all gone—swifts, swallows, and house-martins; but we were not to be without a swallow, for as these went, sand-martins came in, and increased in numbers until they were in thousands. we had them every day and all day before us, flying up and down the valley, in the shelter of the woods, their pale plumage and wavering flight making them look in the distance like great white flies against the wall of black-green trees and gloomy sky beyond.
on days when the sun shone they came in numbers to perch on the telegraph wires stretched across a field between the cottage and village. it was beautiful to see them, a double line fifty or sixty yards long of the small, pale-coloured, graceful birdlings, sitting so close together as to be almost touching, all with their beaks pointing to the west, from where the wind blew.
in this same field, one day when this pleasant company were leaving us after a week's rest, i picked up one that had killed himself by striking against the wire. a most delicate little dead swallow, looking in his pale colouring and softness as moth-like in death as he had seemed when alive and flying. i took him home—the little moth-bird pilgrim to africa, who had got no farther than the itchen on his journey—and buried him at the roots of a {270} honeysuckle growing by the cottage door. it seemed fittest that he should be put there, to become part with the plant which, in the pallid yellows and dusky reds of its blossoms, and in the perfume it gives out so abundantly at eventide, has an expression of melancholy, and is more to us in some of our moods than any other flower.
an orphaned blackbird
the bad weather brought to our little plot of ground a young blackbird, who had evidently been thrown upon the world too early in life. a good number of blackbird broods had been brought off in the bushes about us, and in the rough and tumble of those tempestuous days some of the young had no doubt got scattered and lost; this at all events was one that had called and called to be fed and warmed and comforted in vain—we had heard him calling for days—and who had now grown prematurely silent, and had soberly set himself to find his own living as best he could. between the lawn and the small sweetbriar hedge there was a strip of loose mould where roses had been planted, and here the bird had discovered that by turning over the dead leaves and loose earth a few small morsels were to be found. during those cold, windy, wet days we observed him there diligently searching in his poor, slow little way. he would strike his beak into the loose ground, making a little hop forward at the same time to give force to the stroke, and throw up about as much earth as would cover a shilling-piece; then he would gaze attentively at the spot, and after a couple of seconds hop and strike again; and {271} finally, if he could see nothing to eat, he would move on a few inches and begin again in another place. that was all his art—his one poor little way of getting a living; and it was plain to see from his bedraggled appearance and feeble motions, that he was going the way of most young orphaned birds.
now, i hate playing at providence among the creatures, but we cannot be rid of pity; and there are exceptional cases in which one feels justified in putting out a helping hand. nature herself is not always careless of the individual life: or perhaps it would be better to say with thoreau, "we are not wholly involved in nature." and anxious to give the poor bird a chance by putting him in a sheltered place, and feeding him up, as ruskin once did in a like case, i set about catching him, but could not lay hands on him, for he was still able to fly a little, and always managed to escape pursuit among the brambles, or else in the sedges by the waterside. half an hour after being hunted, he would be back on the edge of the lawn prodding the ground in the old feeble, futile way. and the scraps of food i cunningly placed for him he disregarded, not knowing in his ignorance what was good for him. then i got a supply of small earthworms, and, stalking him, tossed them so as to cause them to fall near him, and he saw and knew what they were, and swallowed them hungrily; and he saw, too, that they were thrown to him by a hand, and that the hand was part of that same huge grey-clad monster that had a little while back so furiously hunted him; {272} and at once he seemed to understand the meaning of it all, and instead of flying from he ran to meet us, and, recovering his voice, called to be fed. the experience of one day made him a tame bird; on the second day he knew that bread and milk, stewed plums, pie-crust, and, in fact, anything we had to give, was good for him; and in the course of the next two or three days he acquired a useful knowledge of our habits. thus, at half-past three in the morning he would begin calling to be fed at the bedroom window. if no notice was taken of him he would go away to try and find something for himself, and return at five o'clock when breakfast was in preparation, and place himself before the kitchen door. usually he got a small snack then; and at the breakfast hour (six o'clock) he would turn up at the dining-room window and get a substantial meal. dinner and tea time—twelve and half-past three o'clock—found him at the same spot; but he was often hungry between meals, and he would then sit before one door or window and call, then move to the next door, and so on until he had been all round the cottage. it was most amusing to see him when, on our return from a long walk or a day out, he would come to meet us, screaming excitedly, bounding over the lawn with long hops, looking like a miniature very dark-coloured kangaroo.
one day i came back alone to the cottage, and sat down on the lawn in a canvas chair, to wait for my companion who had the key. the blackbird had seen, and came flying to me, and pitching close to my {273} feet began crying to be fed, shaking his wings, and dancing about in a most excited state, for he had been left a good many hours without food, and was very hungry. as i moved not in my chair he presently ran round and began screaming and fluttering on the other side of it, thinking, i suppose, that he had gone to the wrong place, and that by addressing himself to the back of my head he would quickly get an answer.
the action of this bird in coming to be fed naturally attracted a good deal of attention among the feathered people about us; they would look on at a distance, evidently astonished and much puzzled at our bird's boldness in coming to our feet. but nothing dreadful happened to him, and little by little they began to lose their suspicion; and first a robin—the robin is always first—then other blackbirds to the number of seven, then chaffinches and dunnocks, all began to grow tame and to attend regularly at meal-time to have a share in anything that was going. the most lively, active, and quarrelsome member of this company was our now glossy foundling; and it troubled us to think that in feeding him we were but staving off the evil day when he would once more have to fend for himself. certainly we were teaching him nothing. but our fears were idle. the seven wild blackbirds that had formed a habit of coming to share his food were all young birds, and as time went on and the hedge fruit began to ripen, we noticed that they kept more and more together. whenever one was observed to fly straight {274} away to some distance, in a few moments another would follow, then another; and presently it would be seen that they were all making their way to some spot in the valley, or to the woods on the other side. after several hours' absence they would all reappear on the lawn, or near it, at the same time, showing that they had been together throughout the day and had returned in company. after observing them in their comings and goings for several weeks i felt convinced that this species has in it the remains of a gregarious instinct which affects the young birds. our bird, as a member of this little company, must have quickly picked up from the others all that it was necessary for him to know, and at last it was plain to us from his behaviour at the cottage that he was doing very well for himself. he was often absent most of the day with the others, and on his return late in the afternoon he would pick over the good things placed for him in a leisurely way, selecting a morsel here and there, and eating more out of compliment to us, as it seemed, than because he was hungry. but up to the very last, when he had grown as hardy and strong on the wing as any of his wild companions, he kept up his acquaintance with and confidence in us; and even at night when i would go out to where most of our wild birds roosted, in the trees and bushes growing in a vast old chalk-pit close to the cottage, and called "blackie," instantly there would be a response—a softly chuckled note, like a sleepy "good-night," thrown back to me out of the darkness.
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cirl bunting
during the spell of rough weather which brought us the blackbird, my interest was centred in the cirl buntings. on 4th august, i was surprised to find that they were breeding again in the little sweetbriar hedge, and had three fledglings about a week old in the nest. they had on this occasion gone from the west to the east side of the cottage, and the new nest, two to three feet from the ground, was placed in the centre of a small tangle of sweet-briar, bramble, and bryony, within a few yards of the trunk of the big lime tree under which i was accustomed to sit. i had this nest under observation until 9th august, which happened to be the worst day, the coldest, wettest, and windiest of all that wintry spell; and yet in such weather the young birds came out of their cradle. for a couple of days they remained near the nest concealed among some low bushes; then the whole family moved away to a hedge at some distance on higher ground, and there i watched the old birds for some days feeding their young on grasshoppers.
the result of my observations on these birds and on three other pairs which i found breeding close by—one in the village, another just outside of it, and the third by the thorn-grown foundation of ruined abbotstone not far off—came as a surprise to me; for it appeared that the cirl in its breeding habits and language was not like other buntings, nor indeed like any other bird. the young hatched out of the curiously marked or "written" eggs are like those of the yellowhammer, black as moor-hen {276} chicks in their black down, opening wide crimson mouths to be fed. but should the parent birds, or one of them, be watching you at the nest, they will open not their beaks, but hearing and obeying the warning note they lie close as if glued to the bottom of the nest. it is a curious sound. unless one knows it, and the cause of it, one may listen a long time and not discover the bird that utters it. the buntings sit as usual, motionless and unseen among the leaves of the tree, and, so long as you are near the nest, keep up the sound, an excessively sharp metallic chirp, uttered in turns by both birds, but always a short note in the female, and a double note in the male, the second one prolonged to a wail or squeal. no other bird has an alarm or warning note like it: it is one of those very high sounds that are easily missed by the hearing, like the robin's fine-drawn wail when in trouble about his young; but when you catch and listen to it the effect on the brain is somewhat distressing. a hampshire friend and naturalist told me that a pair of these birds that bred in his garden almost drove him crazy with their incessant sharp alarm note.
the effect of this warning sound on the young is very striking: before they can fly or are fit to leave the nest, they are ready, when approached too closely, to leap like startled frogs out of the nest, and scuttle away into hiding on the ground. once they have flown they are extremely difficult to find, as, on hearing the parent's warning note, they squat down on their perch and remain motionless as a leaf among {277} the leaves. often i could only succeed in making them fly by seizing and shaking the branches of a thorn or other bush in which i knew they were hidden. so long as the young bird keeps still on its branch, the old bird on some tree twenty or thirty or forty yards away remains motionless, though all the time emitting the sharp, puzzling, warning sound; but the very instant that the young bird quits his perch, darting suddenly away, the parent bird is up too, shooting out so swiftly as almost to elude the sight, and in a moment overtakes and flies with the young bird, hugging it so closely that the two look almost like one. together they dart away to a distance, usually out over a field, and drop and vanish in the grass. but in a few moments the parent bird is back again, sitting still among the leaves, emitting the shrill sound, ready to dart away with the next young bird that seeks to escape by flight.
this method of attending and safe-guarding the young is, indeed, common among birds, but in no species known to me is it seen in such vigour and perfection. what most strikes one is the change from immobility when the bird sits invisible among the leaves, marking the time with those excessively sharp, metallic clicks and wails like a machine-bird, to unexpected, sudden, brilliant activity.
when not warned into silence and immobility by the parent the young cirls are clamorous enough, crying to be fed, and these, too, have voices of an excessive sharpness. of other native species the sharpest hunger-cries that i know are those of the {278} tits, especially the long-tailed tit, and the spotted fly-catcher; but these sounds are not comparable in brain-piercing acuteness to those of the young cirls.
another thing i have wondered at in a creature of so quiet a disposition as the cirl bunting is the extraordinary violence of the male towards other small birds when by chance they come near his young, in or out of the nest. so jealous is he that he will attack a willow-wren or a dunnock with as much fury as other birds use only towards the most deadly enemies of their young.
here, by the itchen, where we have all four buntings, i find that the reed-bunting—called black-head or black-top—is, after the cirl, the latest singer. he continues when, towards the end of august, the corn-bunting and yellowhammer become silent. he is the poorest singer of the bunting tribe, the first part of his song being like the chirp of an excited sparrow, somewhat shriller, and then follows the long note, shrill too, or sibilant and tremulous. it is more like the distressful hunger-call of some young birds than a song-note. a reedy sound in a reedy place, and one likes to hear it in the green valley among the wind-rustled, sword-shaped leaves and waving spears of rush and aquatic grass. so fond is he of his own music that he will sing even when moulting. i was amused one day when listening to a reed-bunting sitting on a top branch of a dwarf alder tree in the valley of ovington, busily occupied in preening his fluffed-out and rather ragged-looking plumage, yet pausing at short intervals in his task {279} to emit his song. so taken up was he with the feather-cleaning and singing, that he took no notice of me when i walked to within twenty-five yards of him. by-and-by, in passing one of his long flight-feathers through his beak it came out, at which he appeared very much surprised. first he raised his head, then began turning it about this way and that, as if admiring the feather he held, or trying to get a better sight of it. for quite a minute he kept it, forgetting to sing, then in turning it about he accidentally dropped it. bending his head down, he watched its slow fall to the grass below very intently, and continued gazing down even after it was on the ground; then, pulling himself together, he resumed the feather-preening task, with its musical interludes.
the worst day during the bad weather when the young cirl buntings left the nest brought the wintry spell to an end. a few days of such perfect weather followed that one could wish for no higher good than to be alive on that green earth, beneath that blue sky. one could best appreciate the crystal purity and divine blueness of the immense space by watching the rooks revelling on high in the morning sunshine, looking in their blackness against the crystalline blue like bird-figures with outspread, motionless wings, carved out of anthracite coal, and suspended by invisible wires in heaven. you could watch them, a numerous company, moving upward in wide circles, the sound of their voices coming fainter and fainter back to earth, until at that vast height they seemed no bigger than humble-bees.
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the oak in august
this clarity of atmosphere had a striking effect, too, on the appearance of the trees, and i could not help noticing the superiority of the oak to all other forest trees in this connection. there comes a time in late summer when at last it loses that "glad light grene" which has distinguished it among its dark-leafed neighbours, and made it in our eyes a type of unfading spring and of everlastingness. it grows dark, too, at last, and is as dark as a cypress or a cedar of lebanon; but observe how different this depth of colour is from that of the elm. the elm, too, stands alone, or in rows, or in isolated groups in the fields, and in the clear sunshine its foliage has a dull, summer-worn, almost rusty green. there is no such worn and weary look in the foliage of the oak in august and september. it is of a rich, healthy green, deep but undimmed by time and weather, and the leaf has a gloss to it. again, on account of its manner of growth, with widespread branches and boughs and twigs well apart, the foliage does not come before us as a mere dense mass of green—an intercepting cloud, as in a painted tree; but the sky is seen through it, and against the sky are seen the thousand thousand individual leaves, clear-cut and beautiful in shape.
it was one of my daily pleasures during this fine weather to go out and look at one of the solitary oak trees growing in the adjoining field when the morning sunlight was on it. to my mind it looked best when viewed at a distance of sixty to seventy yards across the open grass field with nothing but {281} the sky beyond. at that distance not only could the leaves be distinctly seen, but the acorns as well, abundantly and evenly distributed over the whole tree, appearing as small globes of purest bright apple-green among the deep green foliage. the effect was very rich, as of tapestry with an oak-leaf pattern and colour, sprinkled thickly over with round polished gems of a light-green sewn into the fabric.
to an artist with a soul in him, the very sight of such a tree in such conditions would, i imagined, make him sick of his poor little ineffectual art.
