A MIDLAND VILLAGE: GARDEN AND MEADOW.
[Illustration: Kingham Rectory.]
It is a curious fact that, when I return from Switzerland, that I am at
first unable to discover anything in our English midlands but a dead
level of fertile plain. The eye has accustomed itself in the course of
two or three weeks to expect an overshadowing horizon of rock and snow,
and when that is removed, it fails to perceive the lesser differences of
height. This fact is an excellent illustration of the abnormal condition
of things in the Alps, affecting the life both of the plants and animals
which inhabit them; and it also shows us how very slight are the
differences of elevation in most parts of our own island. In ordinary
weather, the temperature does not greatly differ in an English valley
and on an English ridge of hill, and the question whether their fauna
and flora vary, is one rather of soil than of temperature. Still, there
are manifest differences to be observed as we proceed from river-valleys
to rising wooded ground, and from this again to a bare hill-side; and it
may be interesting, after our walk in the Alps, to note the bird-life of
an English rural district which is provided with all three, recalling
dimly and perhaps fancifully the three regions of the Alpine world.
The traveller by railway from Oxford to Worcester leaves the broad
meadows of the Isis about three miles above Oxford, and after crossing a
spur of higher land, strikes the little river Evenlode at Handborough
Station, not far from its junction with the Isis at Cassington. This
Evenlode is the next considerable stream westward of the Cherwell, and
just as the line of the latter is followed by the Birmingham railway, so
the line to Worcester keeps closely to the Evenlode for nearly twenty
miles, only leaving it at last in its cradle in the uplands of
Worcestershire. Westward again of the Evenlode, the Windrush comes down
from the northern Cotswolds, to join the Isis at Witney, and further
still come Leach, and Coln, and others, bringing the clear cold water in
which trout delight, from the abundant springs at Northleach and
Andoversford. But the Evenlode is not a Cotswold stream, though trout
may still be caught in it where it has not been polluted; it skirts for
many miles the north-eastern slope of the Cotswolds, which may be seen
from the train-windows closing in the horizon all the way from
Shipton-under-Wychwood to Evesham and Worcester, but it has the slow
current and muddy bottom of a lowland stream, and runs throughout its
course among water-meadows liable to flood.
For the first few miles of its course it is little more than a ditch;
but shortly after passing the historic lawns of Daylesford, it is joined
by two other streams, one descending from the slope of the Cotswolds,
and the other from the high ground of Chipping Norton eastwards. These
two join the Evenlode exactly at the point where it enters Oxfordshire,
and the combination produces a little river of some pretension, which
enjoys a somewhat more rapid descent for some miles from this junction,
and almost prattles as it passes the ancient abbey-lands of Bruerne and
the picturesque spire of Shipton church.
Close to the point of junction, on a long tongue of land which is a spur
of Daylesford hill, and forms a kind of promontory bounded by the
meadows of the Evenlode and the easternmost of its two tributaries, lies
the village where much of my time is spent in vacations. It is more than
four hundred feet above the sea, and the hills around it rise to double
that height; but it lies in an open country, abounding in corn, amply
provided with hay-meadows by the alluvial deposit of the streams already
mentioned, and also within easy reach of long stretches of wild
woodland. For all along the valley the observant passenger will have
been struck with the long lines of wood which flank the Evenlode at
intervals throughout its course; he passes beneath what remains of the
ancient forest of Wychwood, and again after a considerable gap he has
the abbey-woods of Bruerne on his left, and once more after an interval
of cultivation his view is shut in by the dense fox-covers of Bledington
and Oddington, the border villages of Gloucestershire. It is just at
this interval between Bruerne and Bledington that the junction of the
two streams with the Evenlode takes place; so that from this point, or
from the village already spoken of, it is but a short distance to an
ample and solitary woodland either up or down the valley. Beyond that
woodland lies a stretch of pasture land which brings you to the foot of
the long ridge of hill forming the north-eastern boundary and bulwark of
the Cotswolds, and hiding from us the little old-world towns of Burford
and Northleach. We have therefore within a radius of five or six miles
almost every kind of country in which birds rejoice to live. We have
water-meadow, corn-land, woods, and hills, and also here and there a few
acres of scrubby heath and gorse; and the only requisite we lack is a
large sheet of water or marshy ground, which might attract the waders
and sea-birds so commonly found near Oxford. We are neither too far
north to miss the southern birds, nor too far south to see the northern
ones occasionally; we might with advantage be a little farther east, but
we are not too far west to miss the Nightingale from our coverts.
Such a position and variety would be sure to produce a long list of
birds, both residents and visitors; not only because there are
localities at hand suited to be their dwelling-places during the whole
or a part of the year, but because they offer the _change of scene and
food_ which is essential to the welfare of many species. An open country
of heath and common will not abound in birds of more than a very few
species, unless it is varied with fertile oases, with garden, orchard,
or meadow; for many of the birds that delight to play about in the open,
and rove from place to place during the first few months of their
existence, will need for their nests and young the shelter of trees and
shrubs. While the young are growing, they require incessant feeding, and
the food must be at hand which they can best assimilate and digest; and
it does not follow that this is the same as that which the parents
habitually eat, or which the young themselves will most profit by when
they are fledged. The relation between the movements of birds and their
food is a problem which has not, so far as I know, been fully
investigated as yet. Other problems of absorbing interest at present
occupy the attention of men of science. The sure foothold which has been
gained by the theory of development has placed the great questions of
classification in a new light, and brought the _structure_ of animals
into the foreground; the microscope each year discovers new wonders in
the development of that structure from the earliest visible germ of
life, and the habits of the living animal,[26] and the relations of
animals to each other, have consequently fallen a little into the
background. No ornithological researches, so far as I am aware, have
been lately published in this country, which can compare with those of
Sir J. Lubbock on the intelligence of insects. Birds are in fact an
extremely difficult subject for minute study; abundant leisure at the
proper season, indefatigable perseverance, and the means and opportunity
of travel, are its necessary conditions, which are denied to most men.
And, it must be added, a considerable sacrifice of the life and
happiness of birds is another _sine qua non_ of investigations of this
kind; and thus the growing sensitiveness of cultivated men is brought
into conflict with the ardour of the enthusiastic _savant_.
But to return to my village; it is astonishing how many birds, in spite
of the presence of their deadliest enemies, boys and cats, will come
into our gardens to build their nests, if only fair opportunities are
offered them. In a garden close to my own, whose owner has used every
means in his power to attract them,[27] there were last May fifty-three
nests, exclusive of those of swallows and martins. The garden is not
more than two or three acres in extent, including the little orchard
which adjoins it; but by planting great numbers of thick bushes and
coniferous trees, and by placing flower-pots, old wooden boxes, and
other such odds and ends, in the forks of the branches at a considerable
height from the ground, he has inspired them with perfect confidence in
his goodwill and ‘philornithic’ intentions. The fact that a pair of
Missel-thrushes reared their young here only a few feet from the ground,
and close to a stable and a much-frequented walk, shows that even birds
of wild habits of life may be brought to repose trust in man by
attention to their wants and wishes. The Blackcap, which almost always
nests in woods, had here found it possible to take up its quarters close
to the fruit it loves; and of all the commoner kinds the nests were
legion. Three Greenfinches built in the same tree one over another, the
nests being little more than a foot apart; a Wren had so closely fitted
a little box with the usual materials of its nest, that the door
corresponded with the only opening in the box; a Robin had found an
ample basis of construction in the deserted nest of a Blackbird. The
only bird that had been forbidden access to this Eden was the Bullfinch;
he duly made his appearance, but was judged to be too dangerous to the
buds of the fruit-trees. Siskins and Hawfinches have occasionally looked
into this garden; but the Hawfinch has never bred here, and for some
unexplained reason the same is the case with the Redstart.
In my own garden, within a few feet of the house, this last-mentioned
friend found a very convenient abode in a hole in my largest apple-tree.
The parents became very tame, and when they knew their young were
discovered, made very little scruple about exposing themselves in going
in and out. The food they brought their young, whenever we happened to
see it, was a small green caterpillar; and I sincerely hope we may have
them again next year, both for the benefit to my garden and for the
pleasure they give me.[28] May the sad loss of one fledgling depart from
their memory before next summer! It was just launched into the world
when it fell a victim to my dog, for I had seen it in the nest only an
hour or two before; I had left strict injunctions for the confinement of
all domestic animals as soon as the young were seen to leave the nest,
but had not expected them to face the world so soon. This was a
beautiful little bird, showing already the rich russet colour in what he
had of tail; his legs and claws were of extreme slightness and delicacy,
and his whole colouring and framework was far more engaging than is the
case with most young birds of his age. He had already picked up, or had
been given by his mother, a pebble or two to assist his digestion.
The Redstart was not a very common bird about us until about three years
ago, but now its gentle song is heard in May in almost every garden and
well-hedged field. In August and September the young birds are
everywhere seen showing their conspicuous fire-tails as they flit in and
out of the already fast-browning hedges; yet three or four years ago my
daily walks did not discover more than a few dozen in a summer. What can
be the cause of this surprising increase of population? If it is
anything that has happened in this country, such as the passing of the
Wild Birds’ Protection Act, we must suppose that the same individuals
which breed and are born here in one spring, return here the next year;
_i. e._ our supply of this summer migrant depends on the treatment it
receives here, and not upon the number of Redstarts available in the
world generally. I am inclined indeed to think, though it is difficult
to prove it, that the wholesale slaughter of young birds in our
neighbourhood is less horrible than it used to be before the passing of
the Act; but when we remember that other creatures, certain butterflies,
for example, whose relations to man never greatly differ from year to
year, are found to be much more abundant in some years than others, the
more rational conclusion seems to be, that an increase or decrease of
numbers depends, in the case of _migrating birds_, on certain causes
which are beyond the reach of mankind to regulate. What these may be it
is possible only to guess. A famine in the winter quarters would rapidly
decimate the numbers of those individuals which were with us last
summer, and we cannot tell whether the deficiency would be supplied from
other sources. Even a severe storm in the spring or autumn journey would
destroy an immense number of birds so tender and fragile; and we must
not forget that these journeys take place at the very seasons when
storms are especially frequent and violent. Any very serious alteration
in the methods of dealing with the land in this country, such as the
substitution of railings or ditches for hedges, or the wholesale felling
of woods and copses, would also most certainly affect the numbers of
this and most other birds; but in the course of the last few years no
such change of any magnitude has taken place, and the increase of the
Redstarts must be put down, I think, to causes taking effect beyond the
sea.
The only really annoying destruction of hedges in our immediate
neighbourhood within my recollection is one for which I ought always to
be grateful, for it brought me a sight of the only Black Redstart I have
ever seen in England. I mentioned in the last chapter that this little
bird, which is so abundant on the Continent all through the summer,
never comes to this country except in the autumn, and then only in very
small numbers, chiefly along the south-west coast. It is generally seen
in Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall in November, but never breeds there, and
it is seldom that a straggler finds his way further north. On the 6th of
November, 1884, I was returning from a morning walk, and about a mile
from the village came to a spot which a few years ago was one of the
prettiest in the country-side. Here one road crosses another, and
formerly the crossing was enclosed by high hedges and banks, forming a
comfortable nook where the hounds used to meet, and where the
Sand-martins bored their way into the light and sandy soil. A land-agent
descended here one day, like a bird of ill omen, and swept the hedges
away, filling their place with long lines of bare and ugly wall; the
martins sought a lodging elsewhere, for they could no longer feed their
young with the insect-life of the hedgerows; the hounds followed their
example, and all my associations with the spot were broken. But it was
upon this very wall, new, useful, straight, and intensely human, that
this rare little bird chose to sun himself that bright November morning.
A thousand times have I seen him on the old gray fern-covered walls of
the Alpine passes, but never did I expect to see him on this hideous
‘improvement’ of civilization. Except that he was silent and alone, he
seemed as much at home here as on the flowery slopes of the
Engstlen-alp. There is nothing that man can erect that is too uncomely
for the birds.[29]
I have digressed for a moment to tell this tale of the Black Redstart,
but I have hardly yet done with the village itself. We have of course
plenty of Robins and Hedge-sparrows breeding in our gardens, and in the
nests of these the Cuckoo is fond of depositing its egg. It would not be
always true to say that the Cuckoo _lays_ its egg in its victim’s nest,
for in some instances at least the egg is dropped from the _bill_. A
Robin built its nest in a hole in the wall of my garden, several inches
deep, and with a rather narrow entrance; several eggs were laid and all
was going well. It was three or four days from my first knowledge of the
nest to my second visit, when I was greatly annoyed to find all the eggs
but one on the ground at the foot of the wall, broken to fragments. I
accused the boy who filled the office of boot-cleaner; he was more or
less of a pickle, but he positively denied all complicity. Meanwhile in
my indignation I had forgotten to examine the remaining egg; but the
mystery was soon solved. Noticing that the Robins had not deserted, I
looked again after awhile, and found a young Cuckoo. The ugly wretch
grew rapidly, and soon became too big for the nest, so we hung him up in
a basket on a branch, where the Robins continued to feed him. His aspect
and temper were those of a young fiend. If you looked at him he would
swell with passion, and if you put your finger towards him, he would
rise up in the basket and ‘go for it.’ One fine morning he disappeared,
and was never heard of more.
In this case the egg was unquestionably deposited with the bill, while
the same instrument must have been used to eject the Robin’s eggs, thus
saving the young Cuckoo when hatched the trouble of getting rid of the
young Robins by muscular exertions. Next year a Cuckoo’s egg was laid in
a Hedge-sparrow’s nest in an adjoining garden; but the intended
foster-parents wisely deserted, and I was able to take possession of the
nest and eggs. Every year in June we are sure to notice a persistent
cuckooing close by us, and nearly every year an egg is found in some
nest in the village. Once (I think it was at the time when the Robin was
the victim) boys reported that they saw a cuckoo sitting on a bough hard
by, _with an egg in its bill_. There is no doubt whatever that the bill
can hold the egg, which is hardly as large as a starling’s.[30]
We have another much smaller bird in the village which can hold large
objects between its mandibles—objects almost as large, and sometimes
more bulky, than the egg of the Cuckoo. This is the Nuthatch, which will
carry away from a window any number of hard dessert nuts, and store them
up in all sorts of holes and corners, where they are sometimes found
still unbroken. These plump and neat little birds, whose bills and heads
and necks seem all of a piece, while their bodies and tails are not of
much account, have been for years accustomed to come for their dinners
to my neighbour’s windows.[31] One day while sitting with my friend,
Col. Barrow, F.R.S. (to whom the Oxford Museum is indebted for a most
valuable present of Arctic Birds), we set the Nuthatches a task which at
first puzzled them. After letting them carry off a number of nuts in the
usual way, we put the nuts into a glass tumbler. The birds arrived, they
saw the nuts, and tried to get at them, but in vain. Some invisible
obstacle was in the way; they must have thought it most uncanny. They
poked and prodded, and departed ἀπρακτοὶ. Again they came, and a third
time, with the like result. At last one of them took his station on a
bit of wood erected for perching purposes just over the lintel; he saw
the nuts below him, down he came upon the tumbler’s edge, and in a
moment his long neck was stretched downwards and the prize won. The
muscular power of the bird is as well shown by this feat, as his
perseverance and sagacity by the discovery of the trick; for holding on
by his prehensile claws to the edge of the tumbler, he contrived to
seize with his bill a large nut placed in the bottom of it, without any
assistance from his wings; the length of the tumbler being little less
than that of the bird. But after all, this was no more than a momentary
use of the same posture in which he is often to be seen, as he runs down
the trunks of trees in search of insects.
[Illustration: Feat of a Nuthatch.]
The Spotted Flycatcher is another little bird which abounds in our
gardens and orchards; it is always pleasant to watch, and its nest is
easy to find. One pair had the audacity to build on the wall of the
village school: it was much as if a human being should take up his
residence in a tiger’s jungle, but if I recollect right, the eggs and
young escaped harm. Another pair placed their nest on a sun-dial in Col.
Barrow’s garden, as late as mid-July. This Flycatcher is the latest of
all the summer migrants to arrive on our shores;[32] the males and
females seem to come together, and begin the work of nesting at once,
_i.e._ in the middle of May; if the nest is taken, as was probably the
case with this pair, the second brood would not be hatched till July.
The bird is singularly silent, never getting (within my experience)
beyond an oft-repeated and half-whispered phrase, which consists of
three notes, or rather sounds, and no more; the first is higher and
louder than the others, which are to my mind much like that curious
sound of disappointment or anxiety which we produce by applying the
tongue to the roof of the mouth, and then suddenly withdrawing it. But
is the Flycatcher always and everywhere a silent bird?[33] It is most
singular that he should be unattractive in colour also—gray and brown
and insignificant; but perhaps in the eyes of his wife even his quiet
voice and gray figure may have weight.
[Illustration: Nest on sun-dial.—p. 130.]
This Flycatcher is an excellent study for a young ornithologist. He is
easily seen, perching almost always on a leafless bough or railing,
whence he may have a clear view, and be able to pick and choose his
flies; and he will let you come quite close, without losing his presence
of mind. His attitude is so unique, that I can distinguish his tiny form
at the whole length of the orchard; he sits quietly, silently, with just
a shade of _tristesse_ about him, the tail slightly drooped and still,
the head, with longish narrow bill, bent a little downwards, for his
prey is almost always below him; suddenly this expectant repose is
changed into quick and airy action, the little wings hover here and
there so quickly that you cannot follow them, the fly is caught, and he
returns with it in his bill to his perch, to await a safe moment for
carrying it to its young. All this is done so unobtrusively by a little
grayish-brown bird with grayish-white breast, that hundreds of his human
neighbours never know of his existence in their gardens. He is wholly
unlike his handsomer and livelier namesake, the Pied Flycatcher, in all
those outward characteristics which attract the inexperienced eye; but
the essential features are alike in both, the long wing, the bill flat
at the base, and the gape of the mouth furnished with strong hairs,
which act like the backward-bent teeth of the pike in preventing the
escape of the prey.
Our village is so placed, that all the birds that nest in our gardens
and orchards have easy and immediate access to a variety of
feeding-grounds. From my window, as I write, I look over the village
allotments, where all kinds of birds can be supplied with what they
need, whether they be grain-eating or grub-eating; here come the Rooks,
from the rookery close by, and quite unconscious of my presence behind
the window, and regardless of the carcases of former comrades which
swing on some of the allotments, they turn out the grubs with those
featherless white bills which are still as great a mystery as the
serrated claw of the Nightjar.
Here also come the Wood-pigeons, and in late summer the Turtle-doves—far
worse enemies to the cottager than the rooks; here all the common herd
of Blackbirds, Thrushes, Sparrows, Chaffinches, and Greenfinches, help
to clear the growing vegetables of crawling pests at the rate of
hundreds and thousands a day, yet the owners of the allotments have been
accustomed since their childhood to destroy every winged thing that
comes within their cruel reach. Short-sighted, unobservant as they are,
they decline to be instructed on matters of which they know very little,
but stick to what they know like limpets. For my part, I decline to
protect my gooseberries and currants from the birds; their ravages are
grossly exaggerated, and what they get I do not grudge them, considering
their services during the rest of the year.[34]
Beyond the allotments the ground falls to the brook which I mentioned as
descending from Chipping Norton to join the Evenlode. This brook is
dammed up just below to supply an old flour-mill, and has been so used
for centuries; its bed is therefore well lined with mud, and when the
water is let out, which often happens (for the mill is on its last legs,
and supports itself by aid of a beer-license which is the plague of the
village), this mud appears in little banks under the shelving
rat-riddled lip of the meadow. Here is a chance for some of the more
unusual birds, as every ornithologist would say if he saw the stream;
but both water and mud are often thick with the dye from the Chipping
Norton tweed-mill, and no trout will live below the point at which the
poisoned water comes in. Strange to say, the poisoning does not seem to
affect the birds. Two pairs of Gray Wagtails, which I seldom see in the
Evenlode, passed a happy time here from July to December last year,
preferring some turn of the brook where the water broke over a few
stones or a miniature weir; and through August and September they were
joined by several Green Sandpipers. These beautiful birds, whose
departure I always regret, are on their way from their breeding-places
in the North to some winter residence; they stay only a few weeks in
England, and little is known about them. Many a time have I stalked
them, looking far along the stream with a powerful glass in hopes of
catching them at work with their long bills; each effort comes to the
same provoking conclusion, the bird suddenly shooting up from beneath
your feet, just at a place which you fancied you had most carefully
scanned. When they first arrive they will fly only to a short distance,
and the bright white of their upper tail-feathers enables you to mark
them down easily for a second attempt; but after a few days they will
rise high in the air, like a snipe, when disturbed, and uttering their
shrill pipe, circle round and round, and finally vanish.
It should be noted that this species is called the _Green_ Sandpiper
because its legs are green; such are the wilful ways of English
terminology.[35] It is the only Sandpiper we have, beside the common
species, which invariably prefers the Evenlode, where it may every now
and then be seen working its rapid way along the edge of the water,
quite unconcerned at a spectator, and declining to go off like a
champagne cork. Both kinds come in spring and late summer, but the Green
Sandpiper is much more regular in his visits, and stays with us, in
autumn at least, much longer. A stray pair found their way here last
winter in a hard frost, and rose from beneath my feet as I walked along
the Evenlode on December 24th. This is the only time I have ever seen
them here except in the other brook; and I have very little doubt that
they were total strangers to the locality. Had they ever been here
before, I make bold to say that they would have gone to their old
haunts.
Beyond the brook lies a magnificent meadow nearly a mile long, called
the Yantle, in which, a century and a half ago, the little Warren
Hastings used to lie and look up with ambitious hopes and fears at the
hills and woods of Daylesford. This meadow was once doubtless the common
pasture ground of the parish: it now serves as _ager publicus_ for great
numbers of winged families bred in our gardens and orchards.
Goldfinches, linnets, starlings, redstarts, pipits, wagtails,
white-throats, and a dozen or two of other kinds, spend their whole day
here when the broods are reared. The Yellow Wagtails are always
conspicuous objects; not that they are brilliantly coloured, for the
young ones are mostly brown on the back, and would hardly catch an
inexperienced eye, but because of the playfulness of their ways and
their graceful, wavy flight. Young birds play just like kittens, or like
the fox-cubs I once caught playing in Daylesford wood at the mouth of
their earth, and watched for a long time as they rolled and tumbled over
each other. Only yesterday (July 15, 1885) I watched a host of young
willow-wrens, whitethroats, titmice, and others, sporting with each
other in a willow-coppice, and mixing together without much reserve.
Once I was taken aback by the sight of two young buntings at play; for a
time they quite deceived me by their agility, fluttering in the air like
linnets, unconscious that a single winter was to turn them into burly
and melancholy buntings. The student of birds who sighs when the
breeding season is over and the familiar voices are mute, is consoled by
the sight of all these bright young families, happy in youth, liberty,
and abundance. His knowledge, too, is immensely increased by the study
of their habits and appearance. His sense of the ludicrous is also
sometimes touched, as mine was yesterday when I went to see how my young
swallows were getting on under the roof of an outhouse, and found them
all sitting in a row on a rafter, like school-children; or when the
young goldfinches in the chestnut tree grew too big for their nest, but
would persist in sitting in it till they sat it all out of shape, and no
one could make out how they contrived to hold on by it any longer. Young
birds too, like young trout, are much less suspicious than old ones, and
will often let you come quite close to them. In Magdalen Walk at Oxford
the young birds delight to hop about on the gravel path, supplying
themselves, I suppose, with the pebbles which they need for digestion;
and here one day in July a young Robin repeatedly let me come within two
yards of him, at which distance from me he picked up a fat green
caterpillar, swallowed it with great gusto, and literally smacked his
bill afterwards. The very close examination thus afforded me of this
living young Robin disclosed a strong rufous tint on the tail-coverts,
of which I can find nothing in descriptions of the bird; if this is
usually the case, it should indicate a close connection with the
Redstarts, the young of which resemble the young Robin also in the
mottled brown of the rest of their plumage.
Our meadows are liable to flood occasionally in the winter, and also in
a summer wetter than usual. One stormy day in July, some years ago, I
espied two common Gulls standing in the water of a slight flood,
apparently quite at home. But our Rooks found them out, and considering
the Yantle sacred to themselves and such small birds as they might be
graciously pleased to allow there, proceeded to worry them by flying
round and round above them incessantly until the poor birds were fain to
depart. Rooks are very hostile to intruders, and quite capable of
continued teasing; I have watched them for a whole morning persecuting a
Kestrel. No sooner did the Kestrel alight on the ground than the Rooks
‘went for it,’ and drove it away; and wherever it went they pursued it,
backwards and forwards, over a space of two or three miles.
[Illustration: But our Rooks found them out, and ... proceeded to worry
them.—p. 141.]
In winter the floods will sometimes freeze. One very cold day, as I was
about to cross the ice-bound meadow, I saw some little things in motion
at the further end, like feathers dancing about on the ice, which my
glass discovered to be the tails of a family of Long-tailed Tits. They
were pecking away at the ice, with their tails high in the air. As I
neared them they flew away, and marking the place where they were at
work, I knelt down on the ice and examined it with the greatest care.
Not a trace of anything eatable was to be found. Were they trying to
substitute ice for water? Not a drop of water was to be found anywhere
near. I have seen Fieldfares and Redwings doing the same thing in Christ
Church meadow at Oxford, but the unfrozen Cherwell was within a few
yards of them.[36] Whether or no the Long-tails were trying to appease
their thirst, I may suggest to those who feed the starving birds in
winter, that they should remember that water as well as food is
necessary to support life.
The Yantle is a great favourite with Plovers, Turtle-doves, and
Wood-pigeons, and in the winter it is much patronized by Fieldfares and
Redwings. And a day or two ago I surprised four Curlew here (March 21),
on their way from the sea to their inland breeding-places. But enough of
the village and its gardens and out-lying meadows; in the next chapter
we will stroll further afield.