[Illustration: Fox and Snow-finches.—p. 100.]
A YEAR
WITH THE BIRDS
BY
W. WARDE FOWLER
AUTHOR OF “TALES OF THE BIRDS,” ETC.
“L’uccello ha maggior copia di vita esteriore e interiore, che non hanno
gli altri animali. Ora, se la vita è cosa più perfetta che il suo
contrario, almeno nelle creature viventi: e se perciò la maggior copia
di vita è maggiore perfezione; anche per questo modo séguita che la
natura degli uccelli sia più perfetta.”—Leopardi: _Elogio degli
uccelli_.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRYAN HOOK_
_THIRD EDITION ENLARGED_
_London_
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1891
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
_First two editions published elsewhere. Third edition, 1889; Reprinted,
1891._
PATRI MEO
QVI CVM AVCVPIS NOMINE
AVIVM AMOREM
FILIO
TRADIDIT
PREFACE.
This little book is nothing more than an attempt to help those who love
birds, but know little about them, to realize something of the enjoyment
which I have gained, in work-time as well as in holiday, for many years
past, from the habit of watching and listening for my favourites.
What I have to tell, such as it is, is told in close relation to two or
three localities: an English city, an English village, and a well-known
district of the Alps. This novelty (if it be one) is not likely, I
think, to cause the ordinary reader any difficulty. Oxford is so
familiar to numbers of English people apart from its permanent
residents, that I have ventured to write of it without stopping to
describe its geography; and I have purposely confined myself to the city
and its precincts, in order to show how rich in bird-life an English
town may be. The Alps, too, are known to thousands, and the walk I have
described in Chapter III., if the reader should be unacquainted with it,
may easily be followed by reference to the excellent maps of the
Oberland in the guide-books of Ball or Baedeker. The chapters about the
midland village, which lies in ordinary English country, will explain
their own geography.
One word about the title and the arrangement of the chapters. We Oxford
tutors always reckon our year as beginning with the October term, and
ending with the close of the Long Vacation. My chapters are arranged on
this reckoning; to an Oxford residence from October to June, broken only
by short vacations, succeeds a brief holiday in the Alps; then comes a
sojourn in the midlands; and of the leisurely studies which the latter
part of the Long Vacation allows, I have given an ornithological
specimen in the last chapter.
Some parts of the first, second, and fifth chapters have appeared in the
_Oxford Magazine_, and I have to thank the Editors for leave to reprint
them. The third chapter, or rather the substance of it, was given as a
lecture to the energetic Natural History Society of Marlborough College,
and has already been printed in their reports; the sixth chapter has
been developed out of a paper lately read before the Oxford Philological
Society.
The reader will notice that I have said very little about uncommon
birds, and have tried to keep to the habits, songs, and haunts of the
commoner kinds, which their very abundance endears to their human
friends. I have made no collection, and it will therefore be obvious to
ornithologists that I have no scientific knowledge of structure and
classification beyond that which I have obtained at second-hand. And,
indeed, if I thought I were obtruding myself on the attention of
ornithologists, I should feel as audacious as the Robin which is at this
moment, in my neighbour’s outhouse, sitting on eggs for which, with
characteristic self-confidence, she has chosen a singular resting-place
in an old cage, once the prison-house of an ill-starred Goldfinch.
There are few days, from March to July, when even the shortest stroll
may not reveal something of interest to the careful watcher. It was
pleasant, this brilliant spring morning, to find that a Redstart,
perhaps the same individual noticed on page 120, had not forgotten my
garden during his winter sojourn in the south; and that a pair of Pied
Flycatchers, the first of their species which I have known to visit us
here, were trying to make up their minds to build their nest in an old
gray wall, almost within a stone’s throw of our village church.
Kingham, Oxon.
_April 24, 1886._
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.
My little book, which never expected to spread the circle of its
acquaintance much beyond its Oxford friends, has been introduced by the
goodwill of reviewers to a wider society, and has been apparently
welcomed there. To enable it to present itself in the world to better
advantage, I have added to it a new chapter on the Alpine birds, and
have made a considerable number of additions and corrections in the
original chapters; but I hope I have left it as modest and unpretending
as I originally meant it to be.
During the process of revision, I have been aided by valuable criticisms
and suggestions from several ornithological and bird-loving friends, and
particularly from Rev. H. A. Macpherson, A. H. Macpherson, Esq., O. V.
Aplin, Esq., and W. T. Arnold, Esq., whose initials will be found here
and there in notes and appendices. I have also to thank Archdeacon
Palmer for most kindly pointing out some blemishes in the chapter on the
Birds of Virgil.
W. WARDE FOWLER.
Lincoln College, Oxford.
_Nov. 19, 1886._
NOTE TO THIRD EDITION.
Though my knowledge of birds has naturally grown fast since I wrote
these chapters, I have thought it better, except in one instance, to
resist the temptation of re-writing or interpolating for this edition.
The book stands almost exactly as it was when the second edition was
issued; but the list of Oxford birds is omitted, as Mr. Aplin’s work on
the Birds of Oxfordshire, shortly to be published by the Clarendon
Press, will embody all the information there given. I regret that the
frontispiece, drawn for the original edition by my friend Professor W.
Baldwin Spencer, can no longer be reproduced.
I wish to express my thanks to Mr. B. H. Blackwell, of Oxford, not only
for the care and pains he bestowed upon the issue of the former
editions, but for the ready courtesy with which he fell in with my wish
to transfer the book to the hands of Messrs. Macmillan.
W. W. F.
_June 4, 1889._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Oxford: Autumn and Winter.
How I came to notice birds—Oxford favourable to bird-life—Late
lingerers in October—Migration and pugnacity of Robins—The
Bullfinch and the buds—Parsons’ Pleasure and the
Cherwell—Kingfishers rare in the summer term—Colouring of the
Kingfisher—The Gray Wagtail at the weir; its beauty—The Lesser
Redpoll—An eccentric Jack-snipe—Birds of the Park and Magdalen
Walk—Lesser Spotted Woodpecker—Christchurch meadow and the Botanic
Garden; Titmice, Blackbirds, Redwings—Sea-birds in Port Meadow 1
CHAPTER II.
Oxford: Spring and Summer.
Departure of winter birds—Warblers; explanation of the
term—Different kinds of warblers—Tree-warblers—Chiff-chaff’s
arrival—Willow-warbler’s song and nest—Blackcap and
Garden-warbler; their songs compared—The two Whitethroats at
Parsons’ Pleasure; how to distinguish them—River-warblers;
comparative rarity of Reed-warbler; his song compared with
Sedge-warbler’s—The Redstart and pollard willows—Summer habits of
Oxford Sparrows—Flycatcher and other birds in the Parks 35
CHAPTER III.
The Alps in June.
The Alpine pastures in June—Ornithologists and the Alps—Johann
Anderegg, a peasant naturalist—Number of species in Switzerland;
abundance of food—Migration, complete and partial—The Alps how far
a barrier to migrating birds—The three ornithological regions of
Switzerland; migrations within them—Stanz-stadt and its
reed-bed—Valley of the Aa—White Wagtail and Black Redstart—The
Swallow family—The Alps proper and their birds; Water-pipit,
etc.—Citril Finch at the Engstlen Alp—Snow-finches—Rock-creeper;
its habits—Birds of the pine-forests; Woodpeckers,
Tit-mice—Crested Tit in the Gentelthal—Bonelli’s Warbler at
Meiringen 68
CHAPTER IV.
A Midland Village. Garden and Meadow.
Description of the vale of the Evenlode—Situation of the village;
variety of scenery—Movements of the birds in the district—A
bird-haunted garden—Redstart; its increase of late years—A Black
Redstart on an ugly wall—Cuckoo and Robin’s nest—Ingenious
Nuthatches—Spotted Flycatcher; his peculiarities—Allotments and
Rooks—Green Sandpiper in the brook; occurrence in midwinter—Habits
of young birds—Rooks hostile to intruders—Long-tailed Tits on the
ice 111
CHAPTER V.
A Midland Village: Railway and Woodland.
Railways favourable to birds—Whinchat and Stonechat—Peculiarities
of the Buntings—Nests by the railway—Ring-ousel—Song of the
Tree-pipit—Pipits, Larks, Wagtails—Predatory birds of the
woods—Interview with a Grasshopper Warbler; its “reel”—Beauty of
the Nightingale; its habits and song—Song-birds of the
woods—Woodpeckers—Birds of the hills—Local migrations during the
year 144
CHAPTER VI.
The Alps in September.
Geography of Switzerland—Bird-catching on the passes—Birds on the
Brünig Pass—The Hasli-Thal—Crossbills—The Gadmen-Thal and
Stein-alp—Migration on the Susten-pass—Hospenthal—Departure of
Swallows—Migration of insects—Return to Meiringen—The Swiss
peasant 177
CHAPTER VII.
The Birds of Virgil.
Virgil’s haunts in Italy, in boyhood and manhood—Virgil true to
nature—Pigeons in his poems—Crane and Stork; their
migrations—Corvus and cornix—Swans—The ‘alcyon,’ in Latin and
Greek ornithology—Voice of the Kingfisher—The ‘acalanthis’;
warblers in Italy and Greece—Virgil’s sea-birds and
swallows—Nightingale in Homer and Virgil—Simile of ghosts and
birds in _Sixth Aeneid_—Autumn migrations from the north 210
NOTES 255
INDEX 263
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Fox and Snow Finches _Frontispiece_
First Lesson in Flying 20
Redpoles 22
Early Ablutions 28
The Tern, or Sea Swallow 34
Fieldfares 35
Reed Warbler _to face_ 42
Nest on College Bell 67
The Alps in June _Headpiece_ 68
Bonelli’s Warbler 110
Kingham Rectory 111
Feat of a Nuthatch 129
Nest of Spotted Flycatcher 131
Rooks worrying Gulls 142
Whinchat on Telegraph Wires 144
Grasshopper Warbler 155
Out-door Relief 175
The Alps in September _Headpiece_ 177
Crossbills _to face_ 189
Johann Anderegg 209
Willow Warbler’s Nest 254
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS.
CHAPTER I.
OXFORD: AUTUMN AND WINTER.
For several years past I have contrived, even on the busiest or the
rainiest Oxford mornings, to steal out for twenty minutes or half an
hour soon after breakfast, and in the Broad Walk, the Botanic Garden, or
the Parks, to let my senses exercise themselves on things outside me.
This habit dates from the time when I was an ardent fisherman, and daily
within reach of trout; a long spell of work in the early morning used to
be effectually counteracted by an endeavour to beguile a trout after
breakfast.
By degrees, and owing to altered circumstances, the rod has given way to
a field-glass, and the passion for killing has been displaced by a
desire to see and know; a revolution which I consider has been
beneficial, not only to the trout, but to myself. In the peaceful study
of birds I have found an occupation which exactly falls in with the
habit I had formed—for it is in the early morning that birds are most
active and least disturbed by human beings; an occupation too which can
be carried on at all times of the day in Oxford with much greater
success than I could possibly have imagined when I began it. Even for
one who has not often time or strength to take long rambles in the
country round us, it is astonishing how much of the beauty, the habits,
and the songs of birds may be learnt within the city itself, or in its
immediate precincts.
The fact is, that for several obvious reasons, Oxford is almost a
Paradise of birds. All the conditions of the neighbourhood, as it is
now, are favourable to them. The three chief requisites of the life of
most birds are food, water, and some kind of cover. For food, be they
insect-eaters, or grub-eaters, they need never lack near Oxford. Our
vast expanse of moist alluvial meadow—unequalled at any other point in
the Thames valley—is extraordinarily productive of grubs and flies, as
it is of other things unpleasant to man. Any one can verify this for
himself who will walk along the Isis on a warm summer evening, or watch
the Sand-martins as he crosses the meadows to Hincksey. Snails too
abound; no less than ninety-three species have been collected and
recorded by a late pupil of mine. The ditches in all the water-meadows
are teeming with fresh-water mollusks, and I have seen them dying by
hundreds when left high and dry in a sultry season. Water of course is
everywhere; the fact that our city was built at the confluence of Isis
and Cherwell has had a good deal of influence on its bird-life. But
after all, as far as the city itself is concerned, it is probably the
conservative tranquillity and the comfortable cover of the gardens and
parks that has chiefly attracted the birds. I fancy there is hardly a
town in Europe of equal size where such favourable conditions are
offered them, unless it be one of the old-fashioned well-timbered kind,
such as Wiesbaden, Bath, or Dresden. The college system, which has had
so much influence on Oxford in other ways, and the control exercised by
the University over the government of the town, have had much to do with
this, and the only adverse element even at the present day is the
gradual but steady extension of building to the north, south, and west.
A glance at a map of Oxford will show how large a space in the centre of
the town is occupied by college gardens, all well-timbered and planted,
and if to these are added Christchurch Meadow, Magdalen Park, the
Botanic Garden, and the Parks, together with the adjoining fields, it
will be seen that there must be abundant opportunity for observations,
and some real reason for an attempt to record them.
Since the appearance in the _Oxford Magazine_, in May, 1884, of a list
of “The Birds of Oxford City,” I have been so repeatedly questioned
about birds that have been seen or heard, that it is evident there are
plenty of possessors of eyes and ears, ready and able to make use of
them. There are many families of children growing up in “the Parks” who
may be glad to learn that life in a town such as Oxford is, does not
exclude them from some of the pleasures of the country. And I hold it to
be an unquestioned fact, that the direction of children’s attention to
natural objects is one of the most valuable processes in education. When
these children, or at least the boys among them, go away to their
respective public schools, they will find themselves in the grip of a
system of compulsory game-playing which will effectually prevent any
attempt at patient observation. There is doubtless very much to be said
for this system, if it be applied, like a strong remedy, with real
discriminating care; but the fact is beyond question, that it is doing a
great deal to undermine and destroy some of the Englishman’s most
valuable habits and characteristics, and among others, his acuteness of
observation, in which, in his natural state, he excels all other
nationalities. It is all the more necessary that we should teach our
children, _before_ they leave home, some of the simplest and most
obvious lessons of natural history.
So in the following pages it will be partly my object to write of the
Oxford birds in such a way that any one of any age may be able to
recognize some of the most interesting species that meet the eye or ear
of a stroller within the precincts of the city. And with this object
before me, it will be convenient, I think, to separate winter and
summer, counting as winter the whole period from October to March, and
as summer the warm season from our return to Oxford in April up to the
heart of the Long Vacation; and we will begin with the beginning of the
University year, by which plan we shall gain the advantage of having to
deal with a few birds only to start with, and those obvious to the eye
among leafless branches, thus clearing the way for more difficult
observation of the summer migrants, which have to be detected among all
the luxuriousness of our Oxford foliage.
I shall call the birds by their familiar English names, wherever it is
possible to do so without danger of confounding species; but for
accuracy’s sake, a list of all birds noticed in these pages, with their
scientific names according to the best, or at any rate the latest,
terminology, will be given in an appendix.
When we return to Oxford after our Long Vacation, the only summer
migrants that have not departed southwards are a few Swallows, to be
seen along the banks of the river, and half-a-dozen lazy Martins that
may cling for two or three weeks longer to their favourite nooks about
the buildings of Merton and Magdalen. Last year (1884) none of these
stayed to see November, so far as I could ascertain; but they were
arrested on the south coast by a spell of real warm weather, where the
genial sun was deluding the Robins and Sparrows into fancying the winter
already past. In some years they may be seen on sunny days, even up to
the end of the first week of November, hawking for flies about the
meadow-front of Merton, probably the warmest spot in Oxford. White of
Selborne saw one as late as the 20th of November, on a very sunny warm
morning, in one of the quadrangles of Christchurch; it belonged, no
doubt, to a late September brood, and had been unable to fly when the
rest departed.
It is at first rather sad to find silence reigning in the thickets and
reed-beds that were alive with songsters during the summer term. The
familiar pollards and thorn-bushes, where the Willow-warblers and
Whitethroats were every morning to be seen or heard, are like so many
desolate College rooms in the heart of the Long Vacation. Deserted
nests, black and mouldy, come to light as the leaves drop from the
trees—nurseries whose children have gone forth to try their fortune in
distant countries. But we soon discover that things are not so bad as
they seem. The silence is not quite unbroken: winter visitors arrive,
and the novelty of their voices is cheering, even if they do not break
into song; some kinds are here in greater numbers than in the hot
weather, and others show themselves more boldly, emerging from leafy
recesses in search of food and sunshine.
Every autumn brings us a considerable immigration of birds that have
been absent during the summer, and increases the number of some species
who reside with us in greater or less abundance all the year. Among
these is the familiar Robin. My friend the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, in his
recently published _Birds of Cumberland_, tells us that in that northern
county the Robins slip quietly away southward in autumn. And it is in
September and October that every town and village in the south of
England is enlivened by their numbers and the pathetic beauty of their
song; a song which I have observed as being of finer quality in England
than on the continent, very possibly owing to a greater abundance of
rich food. I have been even tempted to fancy that our English Robin is a
finer and stouter bird than his continental relations. Certainly he is
more numerous here at all times of the year, and he may travel where he
pleases without fear of persecution; while the French and German Robins,
who for the most part make for Italy in the autumn, return in spring in
greatly diminished numbers, owing to the incurable passion of the
Italians for “robins on toast.”
It does not seem that they come to us in great numbers from foreign
shores, as do many others of our common birds at this time of the year;
but they move northwards and southwards within our island, presumably
seeking always a moderately warm climate. At Parsons’ Pleasure I have
seen the bushes literally alive with them in October and November, in a
state of extreme liveliness and pugnacity. This is the great season of
their battles. Most country-people know of the warfare between the old
and young Robins, and will generally tell you that the young ones kill
their parents. The truth seems to be that after their autumnal moult, in
the confidence of renewed strength, the old ones attack their offspring,
and succeed in forcing them to seek new homes. This combativeness is of
course accompanied by fresh vigour of song. Birds will sing, as I am
pretty well convinced, under _any_ kind of pleasant or exciting
emotion—such as love, abundance of food, warmth, or anger; and the
outbreak of the Robin’s song in autumn is to be ascribed, in part at
least, to the last of these. Other reasons may be found, such as
restored health after the moult, or the arrival in a warmer climate
after immigration, or possibly even the delusion, already noticed, which
not uncommonly possesses them in a warm autumn, that it is their duty to
set about pairing and nest-building already. But all these would affect
other species also, and the only reason which seems to suit the
idiosyncrasies of the Robin is this curious rivalry between young and
old.
The Robins, I need not say, are everywhere; but there are certain kinds
of birds for which we must look out in particular places. I mentioned
Parsons’ Pleasure just now; and we may take it very well as a
starting-point, offering as it does, in a space of less than a hundred
yards square, every kind of supply that a bird can possibly want; water,
sedge, reeds, meadows, gravel, railings, hedges, and trees and bushes of
many kinds forming abundant cover. In this cover, as you walk along the
footpath towards the weir, you will very likely see a pair of
Bullfinches. They were here the greater part of last winter, and are
occasionally seen even in college and private gardens; but very rarely
in the breeding-season or the summer, when they are away in the densest
woods, where their beautiful nest and eggs are not too often found.
Should they be at their usual work of devouring buds, it is well worth
while to stop and watch the process; at Parsons’ Pleasure they can do no
serious harm, and the Bullfinch’s bill is not an instrument to be
lightly passed over. It places him apart from all other common English
birds, and brings him into the same sub-family as the Crossbill and the
Pine-Grosbeak. It is short, wide, round, and parrot-like in having the
upper mandible curved downwards over the lower one, and altogether
admirably suited for snipping off and retaining those fat young juicy
buds, from which, as some believe, the Bullfinch has come by his
name.[1]
Parsons’ Pleasure, _i. e._ the well-concealed bathing-place which goes
by this name, stands at the narrow apex of a large island which is
formed by the river Cherwell,—itself here running in two channels which
enclose the walk known as Mesopotamia,—and the slow and often shallow
stream by which Holywell mill is worked. The bird-lover will never cross
the rustic bridge which brings him into the island over this latter
stream, without casting a rapid glance to right and left. Here in the
summer we used to listen to the Nightingale, or watch the Redstarts and
Flycatchers in the willows, or feast our eyes with the splendid deep and
glossy black-blue of the Swallow’s back, as he darted up and down
beneath the bridge in doubtful weather. And here of a winter morning you
may see a pair of Moorfowl paddling out of the large patch of rushes
that lies opposite the bathing-place on the side of the Parks; here they
breed in the summer, with only the little Reed-warblers as companions.
And here there is always in winter at least a chance of seeing a
Kingfisher. Why these beautiful birds are comparatively seldom to be
seen in or about Oxford from March to July is a question not very easy
to answer. The keeper of the bathing-place tells me that they go up to
breed in ditches which run down to the Cherwell from the direction of
Marston and Elsfield; and this is perhaps borne out by the discovery of
a nest by a friend of mine, then incumbent of Woodeaton, in a deserted
quarry between that village and Elsfield, fully a mile from the river.
One would suppose, however, that the birds would be about the river, if
only to supply their voracious young with food, unless we are to
conclude that they feed them principally with slugs and such small-fry.
Here is a point which needs investigation. The movements of the
Kingfisher seem to be only partly understood, but that they do migrate,
whether for short or long distances, I have no doubt whatever.[2] On the
Evenlode, another Oxfordshire river, which runs from
Moreton-in-the-Marsh to join the Isis at Eynsham, they are rarely to be
seen between March and September, or August at the earliest, while I
seldom take a walk along the stream in the winter months without seeing
one or more of them.
This bird is one of those which owe much to the Wild Birds Act, of which
a short account will be found in Note A, at the end of this volume. It
may not be shot between March and August, and though it may be
slaughtered in the winter with impunity, the gun-licence and its own
rapid flight give it a fair chance of escape. Formerly it was a frequent
victim:
By green Rother’s reedy side
The blue Kingfisher flashed and died.
Blue is the prevailing tint of the bird as he flies from you: it is
seldom that you see him coming towards you; but should that happen, the
tint that you chiefly notice is the rich chestnut of the throat and
breast. One Sunday morning, as I was standing on the Cherwell bank just
below the Botanic Garden, a Kingfisher, failing to see me, flew almost
into my arms, shewing this chestnut hue; then suddenly wheeled, and
flashed away all blue and green, towards Magdalen Bridge. I have seen a
Kingfisher hovering like a dragon-fly or humming-bird over a little
sapling almost underneath the bridge by which you enter Addison’s Walk.
Possibly it was about to strike a fish, but unluckily it saw me and
vanished, piping shrilly. The sight was one of marvellous beauty, though
it lasted but a few seconds.
One story is told about the Kingfisher, which I commend to those who
study the varying effects of colours on the eye. Thompson, the famous
Irish naturalist, was out shooting when snow was lying on the ground,
and repeatedly saw a small brown bird in flight, which entirely puzzled
him; at last he shot it, and found it to be a Kingfisher in its full
natural plumage.[3] Can it be that the swift flash of varying liquid
colour, as the bird darts from its perch into the water, is specially
calculated to escape the eye of the unsuspecting minnow? It nearly
always frequents streams of clear water and rather gentle flow, where
its intense brightness would surely discover it, even as it sits upon a
stone or bough, if its hues as seen through a liquid medium did not lose
their sheen. But I must leave these questions to the philosophers, and
return to Parsons’ Pleasure.
The island which I have mentioned is joined to Mesopotamia by another
bridge just below the weir; and here is a second post of observation,
with one feature that is absent at the upper bridge. There all is
silent, unless a breeze is stirring the trees; here the water prattles
gently as it slides down the green slope of the weir into the deep pool
below. This motion of the water makes the weir and this part of the
Cherwell a favourite spot of a very beautiful little bird, which haunts
it throughout the October term.[4] All the spring and early summer the
Gray Wagtail was among the noisy becks and burns of the north, bringing
up his young under some spray-splashed stone, or the moist arch of a
bridge; in July he comes southwards, and from that time till December or
January is constantly to be seen along Cherwell and Isis. He is content
with sluggish water if he can find none that is rapid; but the sound of
the falling water is as surely grateful to his ear as the tiny
crustaceans he finds in it are to his palate. For some time last autumn
(1884) I saw him nearly every day, either on the stonework of the weir,
or walking into its gentle water-slope, or running lightly over the
islands of dead leaves in other parts of the Cherwell; sometimes one
pair would be playing among the barges on the Isis, and another at
Clasper’s boat-house seemed quite unconcerned at the crowd of men and
boats. It is always a pleasure to watch them; and though all Wagtails
have their charm for me, I give this one the first place, for its
matchless delicacy of form, and the gentle grace of all its actions.
The Gray Wagtail is misnamed, both in English and Latin; as we might
infer from the fact that in the one case it is named from the colour of
its back, and in the other from that of its belly.[5] It should be
surely called the Long-tailed Wagtail, for its tail is nearly an inch
longer than that of any other species; or the Brook-Wagtail, because it
so rarely leaves the bed of the stream it haunts. All other Wagtails may
be seen in meadows, ploughed fields, and uplands; but though I have
repeatedly seen this one within the last year in England, Wales,
Ireland, and Switzerland, I never but once saw it away from the water,
and then it was for the moment upon a high road in Dorsetshire, and
within a few yards of a brook and pool. Those who wish to identify it
must remember its long tail and its love of water, and must also look
out for the beautiful sulphur yellow of its under parts; in the spring
both male and female have a black chin and throat, like our common Pied
Wagtail. No picture, and no stuffed specimen, can give the least idea of
what the bird is like: the specimens in our Oxford Museum look “very
sadly,” as the villagers say; you must see the living bird in perpetual
motion, the little feet running swiftly, the long tail ever gently
flickering up and down. How can you successfully draw or stuff a bird
whose most remarkable feature is never for a moment still?
While I am upon Wagtails, let me say a word for our old friend the
common Pied Wagtail, who is with us in varying numbers all the year
round. It is for several reasons a most interesting bird. We have known
it from our childhood; but foreign bird-lovers coming to England would
find it new to them, unless they chanced to come from Western France or
Spain. Like one or two other species of which our island is the
favourite home, it is much darker than its continental cousin the White
Wagtail, when in full adult plumage. Young birds are indeed often quite
a light gray, and in Magdalen cloisters and garden, where the young
broods love to run and seek food on the beautifully-kept turf, almost
every variety of youthful plumage may be seen in June or July, from the
sombrest black to the brightest pearl-gray. Last summer, I one day spent
a long time here watching the efforts of a parent to induce a young bird
to leave its perch and join the others on the turf: the nest must have
been placed somewhat high up among the creepers, and the young bird, on
leaving it, had ventured no further than a little stone statue above my
head. The mother flew repeatedly to the young one, hovered before it,
chattered and encouraged it in every possible way; but it was a long
time before she prevailed.
[Illustration: The mother flew repeatedly to the young one, hovered
before it, chattered and encouraged it in every possible way.—p. 21.]
Let us now return towards the city, looking into the Parks on our way.
The Curators of the Parks, not less generous to the birds than to
mankind, have provided vast stores of food for the former, in the
numbers of birches and conifers which flourish under their care. They,
or their predecessors who stocked the plantations, seem to have had the
particular object of attracting those delightful little north-country
birds the Lesser Redpolls, for they have planted every kind of tree in
whose seeds they find a winter subsistence. Whether they come every
winter I am unable to say, and am inclined to doubt it; but in 1884, any
one who went the round of the Parks, keeping an eye on the birches,
could hardly fail to see them, and they have been reported not only as
taking refuge here in the winter, but even as nesting in the summer. A
nest was taken from the branch of a fir-tree here in 1883, and in this
present year, if I am not mistaken, another nest was built. I failed to
find it, but I several times saw a pair of sportive Redpolls at the
south-east corner of the Parks.[6]
[Illustration: These tiny linnets at work in the delicate
birch-boughs.—p. 23.]
It is one of the prettiest sights that our whole calendar of bird-life
affords, to watch these tiny linnets at work in the delicate
birch-boughs. They fear no human being, and can be approached within a
very few yards. They almost outdo the Titmice in the amazing variety of
their postures. They prefer in a general way to be upside down, and
decidedly object to the common-place attitudes of more solidly built
birds. Otherwise they are not remarkable for beauty at this time of
year; their splendid crimson crest—the “Bluttropf,” as the Germans aptly
call it—is hardly discernible, and the warm pink of their breasts has
altogether vanished.
Before we leave the Parks I must record the fact that an eccentric
Jack-snipe, who ought to have considered that he is properly a winter
bird in these parts, was several times flushed here by the Cherwell in
the _summer_ of 1884, and the natural inference would be that a pair had
bred somewhere near. Col. Montagu, the most accurate of naturalists,
asserted that it has never been known to remain and breed in England;
yet the observer in this case, a well-known college tutor who knows a
Jack-snipe when he sees it, has assured me positively that there was no
mistake; and some well-authenticated cases seem to have occurred since
Montagu wrote.[7]
There are plenty of common birds to be seen even in winter on most days
in the Parks, such as the Skylark, the Yellow-hammer and its relative
the Black-headed Bunting, the Pied Wagtail, the Hedge-sparrow, and
others; though lawn-tennis, and cricket, and new houses and brick walls,
are slowly and surely driving them beyond the Cherwell for food and
shelter. But there are some birds which may be seen to greater advantage
in another part of Oxford, and we will take the short line to
Christchurch Meadow, past Holywell Church, doubtless the abode of Owls,
and the fine elms of Magdalen Park, beloved by the Woodpigeons.
All this lower part of the Cherwell, from Holywell mill to its mouth at
the barges, abounds in snug and secure retreats for the birds. In
Addison’s Walk, as well as in the trees in Christchurch Meadow, dwell
the Nuthatch and the Tree-creeper, both remarkable birds in all their
ways, and each representative of a family of which no other member has
ever been found in these islands. They are tree-climbing birds, but they
climb in very different ways: the Creeper helping himself, like the
Woodpeckers, with the downward-bent feathers of his strong tail; while
the Nuthatch, having no tail to speak of, relies chiefly on his hind
claw. These birds are now placed, on account of the structure of their
feet, in a totally different order to that of the Woodpeckers, who rank
with the Swifts and the Nightjars.
One is apt to think of the Creeper as a silent and very busy bird, who
never finds leisure to rest and preen his feathers, or to relieve his
mind with song. When he does sing he takes us a little aback. One spring
morning, as I was strolling in the Broad Walk, a Creeper flew past me
and fixed himself on the thick branch of an elm—not on a trunk, as
usual—and uttered a loud and vigorous song, something after the manner
of the Wren’s. I had to turn the glass upon him to make sure that there
was no mistake. This is the only occasion on which I have ever heard the
Creeper sing, and it seems strange that a bird with so strong a voice
should use it so seldom.
I have never but once seen the Green Woodpecker in Oxford, and that was
as he flew rapidly over the Parks in the direction of the Magdalen elms.
If he lives there, he must be known to the Magdalen men, but I have not
had intelligence of him. The fact is that he is a much wilder bird than
his near relation, the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, who is, or was, beyond
doubt an Oxford resident. A correspondent of the _Oxford Magazine_, “R.
W. R.,” states that this bird bred outside his window at Trinity a few
years ago, “but has not done so lately for reasons of his own, of which
I approve.” Another correspondent, however, reports him from Addison’s
Walk; and Mr. Macpherson of Oriel, whose eye is not likely to have
erred, believed that he saw one in the Broad Walk a few years ago. I
myself have not seen the bird nearer Oxford than Kennington; but I am
pretty sure that it is commoner and also less shy than is generally
imagined, and also that the ornithologist who sees it is not likely to
mistake it for another bird: its very small size—it is not so large as a
sparrow—its crimson head, and its wings, with their black and white
bars, making it a conspicuous object to a practised eye.[8]
[Illustration: A blackbird proceeded calmly to take his bath in the
fountain.—p. 30.]
Christchurch Meadow is a favourite home of the Titmice. I believe that I
have seen all the five English species here within a space of a very few
days: English, not British, for there is one other, the Crested Tit, of
which I shall have more to say in another chapter. A family of
Longtails, or Bottle-tits, flits from bush to bush, never associating
with the others, and so justifying its scientific separation from them.
Another family is to be seen in the Parks, where they build a nest every
year. These delightful little birds are however quite willing to live in
the very centre of a town, indifferent to noise and dust. A Marsh-tit
was once seen performing its antics on a lamp-post in St. Giles. A
Great-tit built its nest in the stump of an old laburnum, in the little
garden of Lincoln College, within a few yards of the Turl and High
Street; the nest was discovered by my dog, who was prowling about the
garden with a view to cats. I took great interest in this brood, which
was successfully reared, and on one occasion I watched the parents
bringing food to their young for twenty minutes, during which time they
were fed fourteen times. The ringing note of this Great-tit or his
relations is the first to be heard in that garden in winter-time, and is
always welcome. The little Blue-tit is also forthcoming there at times.
One Sunday morning I saw a Blue-tit climbing the walls of my College
quadrangle, almost after the manner of a Creeper, searching the crannies
for insects, and even breaking down the crust of weathered stone. Among
memories of the rain, mist, and hard work of many an Oxford winter spent
among these gray walls, “haec olim meminisse juvabit.”
But I have strayed away from Christchurch Meadow and the Botanic Garden.
Here it is more especially that the Thrush tribe makes its presence felt
throughout the autumn. In the Gardens the thrushes and blackbirds have
become so tame from constant quiet and protection, that, like the
donkeys at Athens of which Plato tells us, they will hardly deign to
move out of your way. A blackbird proceeded calmly to take his bath, in
the fountain at the lower end near the meadow, one morning when I was
looking on, and seemed to be fully aware of the fact that there was a
locked gate between us. Missel-thrushes are also to be seen here; and
all these birds go out of a morning to breakfast on a thickly-berried
thorn-bush at the Cherwell end of the Broad Walk, where they meet with
their relations the Redwings, and now and then with a Fieldfare. The
walker round the meadow in winter will seldom fail to hear the harsh
call of the redwing, as, together with starlings innumerable, and
abundance of blackbirds, they utter loud sounds of disapproval. There is
one bush here whose berries must have some strange ambrosial flavour
that blackbirds dearly love. All the blackbirds in Oxford seem to have
their free breakfast-table here, and they have grown so bold that they
will return to it again and again as I teasingly walk up and down in
front of it, merely flying to a neighbouring tree when I scrutinize them
too closely in search of a lingering Ring-ousel. Who ever heard of a
_flock_ of blackbirds? Here, however, in November, 1884, was a sight to
be seen, which might possibly throw some light on the process of
developing gregarious habits.[9]
Rooks, Starlings, Jackdaws, and Sparrows, which abound here and
everywhere else in Oxford, every one can observe for themselves, and of
Sparrows I shall have something to say in the next chapter; but let me
remind my young readers that _every_ bird is worth noticing, whether it
be the rarest or the commonest. My sister laughs at me, because the
other day she found an old copy of White’s _Selborne_ belonging to me,
wherein was inscribed on the page devoted to the Rook, in puerile
handwriting, the following annotation: “Common about Bath” (where I was
then at school). But I tell her that it was a strictly accurate
scientific observation; and I only wish that I had followed it up with
others equally unimpeachable.
But more out-of-the-way birds will sometimes come to Oxford, and I have
seen a Kestrel trying to hover in a high wind over Christchurch Meadow,
and a Heron sitting on the old gatepost in the middle of the field.
Herons are often to be seen by the river-bank in Port Meadow; and it was
here, some years ago, that Mr. W. T. Arnold, of University College, was
witness of an extraordinary attack made by a party of three on some
small birds. Port Meadow constantly entices sea-birds when it is under
water, or when the water is receding and leaving that horrible slime
which is so unpleasant to the nose of man; and in fact there is hardly a
wader or a scratcher (to use Mr. Ruskin’s term)[10] that has not at one
time or another been taken near Oxford. Sometimes they come on
migration, sometimes they are driven by stress of weather. Two Stormy
Petrels were caught at Bossom’s barge in the Port Meadow not long ago,
and exhibited in Mr. Darbey the birdstuffer’s window. And a well-known
Oxford physician has kindly given me an interesting account of his
discovery of a Great Northern Diver, swimming disconsolately in a large
hole in the ice near King’s Weir, one day during the famous Crimean
winter of 1854-5; this splendid bird he shot with a gun borrowed from
the inn at Godstow. During the spring and early summer of 1866, our
visitors from the sea-coast were constant and numerous. Even the
beautiful and graceful little Tern (_Sterna Minuta_) more than once
found his way here; and on the second occasion saved his own life by the
confidence which he seemed to repose in man. ‘I intended to shoot it,’
wrote a young friend of mine, ‘but relented when I saw how tame and
trustful it was.’
Specimens of almost all such birds are to be seen in the bird-cases of
the Museum, and occasionally they may be seen in the flesh in the
Market. Both Market and Museum will give plenty to do on a rainy day in
winter:—
Ubi jam breviorque dies et mollior aestas
Quae vigilanda viris!
[Illustration: The Tern, or Sea Swallow.]