British Birds in their Haunts Part 8

Ring Ouzel [M] [F]]

THE SONG THRUSH t.u.r.dUS MuSICUS

Upper parts brown tinged with olive; wing-coverts edged and tipped with reddish yellow; cere yellowish; throat white in the middle, without spots; sides of neck and breast reddish yellow with triangular dark brown spots; abdomen and flanks pure white with oval dark brown spots; under wing-coverts pale orange yellow; bill and feet greyish brown. Length, eight inches and a half, breadth thirteen inches. Eggs blue with a few black spots mostly at the larger end.

The Thrush holds a distinguished place among British birds, as contributing, perhaps, more than any other to the aggregate charms of a country life. However near it may be, its song is never harsh, and heard at a distance its only defect is, that it is not nearer. It possesses, too, the charm of harmonizing with all other pleasant natural sounds. If to these recommendations we add that the Thrush frequents all parts of England, and resorts to the suburban garden as well as the forest and rocky glen, we think we may justly claim for it the distinction among birds, of being the last that we would willingly part with, not even excepting its allowed master in song himself, the Nightingale. Three notes are often repeated: Did he do it? Shut the gate, Kubelik.

The food of the Thrush during winter consists of worms, insects, and snails. The first of these it picks up or draws out from their holes, in meadows and lawns; the others it hunts for among moss and stones, in woods and hedges, swallowing the smaller ones whole, and extracting the edible parts of large snails by das.h.i.+ng them with much adroitness against a stone. When it has once discovered a stone adapted to its purpose, it returns to it again and again, so that it is not uncommon in one's winter walks to come upon a place thickly strewn with broken sh.e.l.ls, all, most probably, the 'chips' of one workman. As spring advances, it adds caterpillars to its bill of fare, and as the summer fruits ripen, it attacks them all in succession; strawberries, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, cherries, and, on the Continent, grapes suit its palate right well; and, when these are gone, pears and apples, whether attached to the tree or lying on the ground, bear, too often for the gardener, the marks of its beak on their ripest side.

During all this period it relieves the monotony of its diet by an occasional repast on animal food; as, indeed, in winter it alternates its food whenever opportunity occurs, by regaling itself on wild berries. Yet, despite the mischief which it perpetrates in our gardens by devouring and spoiling much of the choicest fruit--for your thrush is an epicure, and tastes none but the ripest and best--the service which it renders as a devourer of insects more than compensates for all. So the gardener, if a wise man, will prefer the scare-crow to the gun, the protecting net to that which captures.

I know two adjoining estates in Yorks.h.i.+re. On one the gardener shoots blackbirds and thrushes in fruit time. On the other they are protected. The latter yields always more fruit than the former.

The Thrush holds a high rank, too, among birds as an architect. Its nest is usually placed in a thorn-bush, a larch or young fir-tree, a furze-bush, an apple or pear tree, or an ordinary hedge, at no great elevation from the ground, and not concealed with much attempt at art.

Indeed, as it begins to build very early, it is only when it selects an evergreen that it has much chance of effectually hiding its retreat. The nest externally is composed of feather-moss, intermatted with bents, twigs, and small roots, and terminates above in a thicker rim of the same materials. Thus far the bird has displayed her skill as basket-maker. The outer case is succeeded by a layer of cow-dung, applied in small pellets, and cemented with saliva. The builder, with a beak for her only trowel, has now completed the mason's work. But she has yet to show her skill as a plasterer; this she does by lining her cup-like chamber with stucco made from decayed wood, pulverized and reduced to a proper consistence, kneading it with her beak. With this for her sole instrument, except her round breast, to give to the whole the requisite form, she has constructed a circular bowl sufficiently compact to exclude air and water, as true and as finely finished as if it had been moulded on a potter's wheel, or turned on a lathe.

The Thrush lays four or five eggs, and rears several broods in the season, building a new nest for each brood. During incubation the female is very tame, and will suffer herself to be approached quite closely without deserting her post. In the vicinity of houses, where she is familiar with the human form, she will even take worms and other food from the hand.

THE REDWING t.u.r.dUS ILiACUS

Upper plumage olive brown; lore black and yellow; a broad white streak above the eye; lower plumage white, with numerous oblong dusky spots, middle of the abdomen without spots; under wing-coverts and flanks bright orange red; bill dusky; feet grey. Length eight inches, breadth thirteen inches. Eggs greenish blue mottled with dark brownish red spots.

The Redwing (called in France _Mauvis_, whence an old name for the Song-thrush, 'Mavis') is the smallest of the Thrushes with which we are familiar. It is, like the Fieldfare, a bird of pa.s.sage, reaching us from the north about the same time with the Woodc.o.c.k, in October.

It resembles the Song-thrush more than any other bird of the family, but may readily be distinguished even at some distance by the light stripe over the eye, and its bright red under wing-coverts. In some parts of France it is much sought after by the fowler, its flesh being considered by many superior to that of the Quail and Woodc.o.c.k.

It owes perhaps some of this unfortunate distinction to the fact of its arriving in France in time to fatten on grapes, for in this country it is often too lean to be worth cooking. Being impatient of cold, it is less abundant in the north of England than the south; but even in the mild climates of Devon and Cornwall, where it congregates in large numbers, it is so much enfeebled by unusually severe weather, as to be liable to be hunted down by boys with sticks, and a Redwing starved to death used to be no unfrequent sight in the course of a winter's ramble. As long as the ground remains neither frozen nor snowed up, the open meadows may be seen everywhere spotted with these birds, but when the earth becomes so hard as to resist their efforts in digging up worms and grubs, they repair to the cliffs which border the sea-coast, where some sunny nook is generally to be found, to woods in quest of berries, or to the watercourses of sheltered valleys. At these times they are mostly silent, their only note, when they utter any, being simple and harsh; but in France they are said to sing towards the end of February, and even in this country they have been known to perch on trees in mild weather, and execute a regular song. Towards the end of April or beginning of May, they take their departure northwards, where they pa.s.s the summer, preferring woods and thickets in the vicinity of marshes. Mr. Hewitson states that while he was travelling through Norway 'the Redwing was but seldom seen, and then perched upon the summit of one of the highest trees, pouring forth its delightfully wild note. It was always very shy, and upon seeing our approach would drop suddenly from its height, and disappear among the underwood. Its nest, which we twice found with young ones (although our unceasing endeavours to find its eggs were fruitless), was similar to that of the Fieldfare. The Redwing is called the Nightingale of Norway, and well it deserves the name', and t.u.r.dus Iliacus because it frequented in such great numbers the environs of Ilion-Troy.

THE FIELDFARE t.u.r.dUS PILaRIS

Head, nape, and lower part of the back dark ash colour; upper part of the back and wing-coverts chestnut brown; lore black; a white rim above the eyes; throat and breast yellowish red with oblong dark spots; feathers on the flanks spotted with black and edged with white; abdomen pure white without spots; under wing-coverts white, beak brown, tipped with black.

Length ten inches, breadth seventeen inches. Eggs light blue, mottled all over with dark red brown spots.

The Fieldfare is little inferior in size to the Missel Thrush, with which, however, it is not likely to be confounded even at a distance, owing to the predominant bluish tinge of its upper plumage. In the west of England, where the Thrush is called the Grey-bird, to distinguish it from its ally the Blackbird, the Fieldfare is known by the name of Bluebird, to distinguish it from both. It is a migratory bird, spending its summer, and breeding, in the north of Europe, and paying us an annual visit in October or November. But it is impatient of cold, even with us, for in winters of unusual severity it migrates yet farther south, and drops in upon our meadows a second time in the spring, when on its way to its summer quarters. Fieldfares are eminently gregarious; not only do they arrive at our sh.o.r.es and depart from them in flocks, but they keep together as long as they remain, nor do they dissolve their society on their return to the north, but build their nests many together in the same wood. In this country, they are wild and cautious birds, resorting during open weather to watercourses and damp pastures, where they feed on worms and insects, and when frost sets in betaking themselves to bushes in quest of haws and other berries; or in very severe weather resorting to the muddy or sandy sea-sh.o.r.e. They frequent also commons on which the Juniper abounds, the berries of this shrub affording them an abundant banquet.

Unlike the Blackbird and Thrush, they rarely seek for food under hedges, but keep near the middle of fields, as if afraid of being molested by some concealed enemy. When alarmed, they either take refuge in the branches of a high tree in the neighbourhood, or remove altogether to a distant field. The song of the Fieldfare I have never heard: Toussenel doubts whether it has any; Yarrell describes it as 'soft and melodious'; Bechstein as 'a mere harsh disagreeable warble'; while a writer in the _Zoologist_ who heard one sing during the mild January of 1846, in Devon, describes it as 'combining the melodious whistle of the Blackbird with the powerful voice of the Mistle Thrush'. Its call-note is short and harsh, and has in France given it the provincial names of Tia-tia and Tchatcha. This latter name accords with Macgillivray's mode of spelling its note, _yack chuck_, harsh enough, no one will deny. 'Our attention was attracted by the harsh cries of several birds which we at first supposed must be Shrikes, but which afterwards proved to be Fieldfares. We were now delighted by the discovery of several of their nests, and were surprised to find them (so contrary to the habits of other species of the genus with which we are acquainted) breeding in society. Their nests were at various heights from the ground, from four to thirty or forty feet or upwards; they were, for the most part, placed against the trunk of the Spruce Fir; some were, however, at a considerable distance from it, upon the upper surface and towards the smaller end of the thicker branches: they resembled most nearly those of the Ring Ouzel; the outside is composed of sticks and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and weeds gathered wet, matted with a small quant.i.ty of clay, and lined with a thick bed of fine dry gra.s.s: none of them yet contained more than three eggs, although we afterwards found that five was more commonly the number than four, and that even six was very frequent; they are very similar to those of the Blackbird, and even more so to the Ring Ouzel. The Fieldfare is the most abundant bird in Norway, and is generally diffused over that part which we visited, building, as already noticed, in society; two hundred nests or more being frequently seen within a very small s.p.a.ce.' Oddly enough two hundred was just the number of a colony of nests in Thuringen on the estate of Baron von Berlepsch, which were those of Fieldfares he had induced to come by tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the trunks of a long row of Black Poplar trees so as to afford good sites for the nests. The present editor visited these in 1906. Some few instances are on record of the Fieldfare breeding in this country, but these are exceptional. In general they leave us in April and May, though they have been observed as late as the beginning of June.

THE BLACKBIRD t.u.r.dUS MERULA

_Male_--plumage wholly black; bill and orbits of the eyes orange yellow; feet black. _Female_--upper plumage sooty brown; throat pale brown with darker spots; breast reddish brown pa.s.sing into dark ash brown; bill and legs dusky. Length ten inches; breadth sixteen inches. Eggs greenish grey, spotted and speckled with light red brown.

With his glossy coat and yellow beak the Blackbird is a handsomer bird than the Thrush; his food is much the same: he builds his nest in similar places; he is a great glutton when gooseberries are ripe, and his rich mellow song is highly inspiriting. But he is suspicious and wary; however hard pressed he may be by hunger, you will rarely see him hunting for food in the open field. He prefers the solitude and privacy of 'the bush'. In a furze-brake, a coppice, a wooded watercourse, or a thick hedgerow, he chooses his feeding ground, and allows no sort of partners.h.i.+p. Approach his haunt, and if he simply mistrusts you, he darts out flying close to the ground, pursues his course some twenty yards and dips again into the thicket, issuing most probably on the other side, and ceasing not until he has placed what he considers a safe distance between himself and his enemy. But with all his cunning he fails in prudence; it is not in his nature to steal away silently. If he only suspects that all is not right, he utters repeatedly a low cluck, which seems to say, 'This is no place for me, I must be off'. But if he is positively alarmed, his loud vociferous cry rings out like a bell, informing all whom it may concern that 'danger is at hand, and it behoves all who value their safety to fly'.

Most animals understand the cry in this sense, and catch the alarm.

Many a time has the deer-stalker been disappointed of a shot, who, after traversing half a mile on his hands and knees between rocks and shrubs, has just before the critical moment of action started some ill-omened Blackbird. Out bursts the frantic alarum, heard at a great distance; the intended victim catches the alarm, once snuffs the air to discover in what direction the foe lies concealed, and bounds to a place of security. A somewhat similar note, not, however, indicative of terror, real or imagined, is uttered when the bird is about to retire for the night, and this at all seasons of the year. He would merit, therefore, the t.i.tle of 'Bellman of the woods'. Neither of these sounds is to be confounded with the true _song_ of the Blackbird. This is a full, melodious, joyful carol, many of the notes being remarkable for their flute-like tone--'the whistling of the Blackbird'--and varying greatly in their order of repet.i.tion; though I am inclined to believe that most birds of this kind have a favourite pa.s.sage, which they repeat at intervals many times during the same performance.

PLATES TO BLACKBIRD.

1. A nest and eggs.

2. The young just emerged from the egg and an egg (June 1).

3. The day after hatching (June 2).

4. Four days later (June 4).

5. Sixth day out (June 5).

6. Ninth day out.

7. Eleventh day out.

8. Fourteenth day out.

We would draw attention to the extraordinary size of the bird just out as compared with the egg. On the sixth day the feather shafts with the tips of the encased feathers sticking out of them are quite formed, although two days earlier they were hardly more than indicated. On the ninth day feathers nearly cover the whole of the skin--on the eleventh day they do this completely. In No. 8 the bird was drawn after it had flown from the nest.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Blackbirds Nest and Eggs Just Hatched.

Day after.

4th Day.

6th Day.

9th Day.

11th Day.

Blackbird, 14th day.

[_face p. 8._]]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Stonechat [F] [M]

Whinchat Black Redstart [F] [M]

Redstart [M] [F]]

The song of the Blackbird does not meet the approbation of bird-fanciers: 'It is not dest.i.tute of melody,' says Bechstein, 'but it is broken by noisy tones, and is agreeable only in the open country'. The art of teaching the Blackbird is of old date, for we find in Pepys' Diary, May 22, 1663, the following pa.s.sage: 'Rendall, the house carpenter at Deptford, hath sent me a fine Blackbird, which I went to see. He tells me he was offered twenty s.h.i.+llings for him as he came along, he do so whistle. 23d. Waked this morning between four and five by my Blackbird, which whistled as well as ever I heard any; only it is the beginning of many tunes very well, but then leaves them and goes no further.'

The song of the Blackbird is occasionally heard during the mild days of winter, but it is not until spring sets in that it can be said to be in full, uninterrupted song. It then repairs to some thick bush or hedge, especially at the corner of a pond, and builds its nest, a bulky structure, the framework of which is composed of twigs and roots; within is a thin layer of mud lined with small fibrous roots, bents, and moss. The nest contains four or five eggs, and the young birds are fed with worms. In the breeding season Blackbirds are far more venturesome than at any other time, as they frequently select a garden in which to build their nest, with the double object, perhaps, of procuring plenty of worms for their nestlings, and of launching them when fledged where they will have great facilities for regaling themselves on summer fruits. In such localities the appearance of a cat near their nest greatly excites their wrath. From being timid they become very courageous, scolding with all their might, darting down so near as almost to dash in her face, and generally ending by compelling her to beat a retreat.