equals the beauty and the delight of a summer spent in our woods
and meadows. Green leaves and grass, and sunshine, blue skies, and
sweet brooks--there is nothing to approach it; it is no wonder the
birds are tempted to us. The food they find is so abundant, that
after all their efforts, little apparent diminution can be noticed;
to this fertile and lovely country, therefore, they hasten every
year. It might be said that the spring-birds begin to come to us in
the autumn, as early as October, when hedge-sparrows and
golden-crested wrens, larks, blackbirds, and thrushes, and many
others, float over on the gales from the coasts of Norway. Their
numbers, especially of the smaller birds, such as larks, are
immense, and their line of flight so extended that it strikes our
shores for a distance of two hundred miles. The vastness of these
numbers, indeed, makes me question whether they all come from
Scandinavia. That is their route; Norway seems to be the last land
they see before crossing; but I think it possible that their
original homes may have been farther still. Though many go back in
the spring, many individuals remain here, and rejoice in the plenty
of the hedgerows. As all roads of old time led to Rome, so do
bird-routes lead to these islands. Some of these birds appear to
pair in November, and so have settled their courtship long before
the crocuses of St. Valentine. Much difference is apparent in the
dates recorded of the arrivals in spring; they vary year by year,
and now one and now another bird presents itself first, so that I
shall not in these notes attempt to arrange them in strict order.
One of the first noticeable in southern fields is the common
wagtail. When his shrill note is heard echoing against the walls of
the outhouses as he rises from the ground, the carters and ploughmen
know that there will not be much more frost. If icicles hang from
the thatched eaves, they will not long hang, but melt before the
softer wind. The bitter part of winter is over. The wagtail is a
house-bird, making the houses or cattle-pens its centre, and
remaining about them for months. There is not a farmhouse in the
South of England without its summer pair of wagtails--not more than
one pair, as a rule, for they are not gregarious till winter; but
considering that every farmhouse has its pair, their numbers must be
really large.
Where wheatears frequent, their return is very marked; they appear
suddenly in the gardens and open places, and cannot be overlooked.
Swallows return one by one at first, and we get used to them by
degrees. The wheatears seem to drop out of the night, and to be
showered down on the ground in the morning. A white bar on the tail
renders them conspicuous, for at that time much of the surface of
the earth is bare and dark. Naturally birds of the wildest and most
open country, they yet show no dread, but approach the houses
closely. They are local in their habits, or perhaps follow a broad
but well-defined route of migration; so that while common in one
place, they are rare in others. In two localities with which I am
familiar, and know every path, I never saw a wheatear. I heard of
them occasionally as passing over, but they were not birds of the
district. In Sussex, on the contrary, the wheatear is as regularly
seen as the blackbird; and in the spring and summer you cannot go
for a walk without finding them. They change their ground three
times: first, on arrival, they feed in the gardens and arable
fields; next, they go up on the hills; lastly, they return to the
coast, and frequent the extreme edge of the cliffs and the land by
the shore. Every bird has its different manner; I do not know how
else to express it. Now, the wheatears move in numbers, and yet not
in concert; in spring, perhaps twenty may be counted in sight at
once on the ground, feeding together and yet quite separate; just
opposite in manner to starlings, who feed side by side and rise and
fly as one. Every wheatear feeds by himself, a space between him and
his neighbour, dotted about, and yet they obviously have a certain
amount of mutual understanding: they recognize that they belong to
the same family, but maintain their individuality. On the hills in
their breeding season they act in the same way: each pair has a wide
piece of turf, sometimes many acres. But if you see one pair, it is
certain that other pairs are in the neighbourhood. In their
breeding-grounds they will not permit a man to approach so near as
when they arrive, or as when the nesting is over. At the time of
their arrival, anyone can walk up within a short distance; so,
again, in autumn. During the nesting-time the wheatear perches on a
molehill, or a large flint, or any slight elevation above the open
surface of the downs, and allows no one to come closer than fifty
yards.
The hedge-sparrows, that creep about the bushes of the hedgerow as
mice creep about the banks, are early in spring joined by the
whitethroats, almost the first hedge-birds to return. The thicker
the undergrowth of nettles and wild parsley, rushes and rough
grasses, the more the whitethroat likes the spot. Amongst this
tangled mass he lives and feeds, slipping about under the brambles
and ferns as rapidly as if the way was clear. Loudest of all, the
chiff-chaff sings in the ash woods, bare and leafless, while yet the
sharp winds rush between the poles, rattling them together, and
bringing down the dead twigs to the earth. The violets are difficult
to find, few, and scattered; but his clear note rings in the hushes
of the eastern breeze, encouraging the flowers. It is very pleasant
indeed to hear him. One's hands are dry, and the skin rough with the
east wind; the trunks of the trees look dry, and the lichens have
shrivelled on the bark; the brook looks dark; grey dust rises and
drifts, and the grey clouds hurry over; but the chiff-chaff sings,
and it is certainly spring. The first green leaves which the elder
put forth in January have been burned up by frost, and the woodbine,
which looked as if it would soon be entirely green then, has been
checked, and remains a promise only. The chiff-chaff tells the buds
of the coming April rains and the sweet soft intervals of warm sun.
He is a sure forerunner. He defies the bitter wind; his little heart
is as true as steel. He is one of the birds in which I feel a
personal interest, as if I could converse with him. The willow-wren,
his friend, comes later, and has a gentler, plaintive song.
Meadow-pipits are not migrants in the sense that the swallows are;
but they move about and so change their localities that when they
come back they have much of the interest of a spring-bird. They rise
from the ground and sing in the air like larks, but not at such a
height, nor is the song so beautiful. These, too, are early birds.
They often frequent very exposed places, as the side of a hill where
the air is keen, and where one would not expect to meet with so
lively a little creature. The pond has not yet any of the growths
that will presently render its margin green; the willow-herbs are
still low, the aquatic grasses have not become strong, and the
osiers are without leaf. If examined closely, evidences of growth
would be found everywhere around it; but as yet the surface is open,
and it looks cold. Along the brook the shoals are visible, as the
flags have not risen from the stems which were cut down in the
autumn. In the sedges, however, the first young shoots are thrusting
up, and the reeds have started slender green stalks tipped with the
first leaves. At the verge of the water, a thick green plant of
marsh-marigold has one or two great golden flowers open. This is the
appearance of his home when the sedge-reedling returns to it.
Sometimes he may be seen flitting across the pond, or perched for a
moment on an exposed branch; but he quickly returns to the dry
sedges or the bushes, or climbs in and out the willow-stoles. It is
too bare and open for him at the pond, or even by the brookside. So
much does he love concealment, that although to be near the water is
his habit, for a while he prefers to keep back among the bushes. As
the reeds and reed canary-grass come up and form a cover--as the
sedges grow green and advance to the edge of the water--as the
sword-flags lift up and expand, opening from a centre, the
sedge-reedling issues from the bushes and enters these vigorous
growths, on which he perches, and about which he climbs as if they
were trees. In the pleasant mornings, when the sun grows warm about
eleven o'clock, he calls and sings with scarcely a cessation, and is
answered by his companions up and down the stream. He does but just
interrupt his search for food to sing; he stays a moment, calls, and
immediately resumes his prying into every crevice of the branches
and stoles. The thrush often sits on a bough and sings for a length
of time, apart from his food, and without thinking of it, absorbed
in his song, and full of the sweetness of the day. These restless
sedge-reedlings cannot pause; their little feet are for ever at
work, climbing about the willow-stoles where the wands spring from
the trunk; they never reflect; they are always engaged. This
restlessness is to them a great pleasure; they are filled with the
life which the sun gives, and express it in every motion; they are
so joyful, they cannot be still. Step into the osier-bed amongst
them gently; they will chirp--a note like a sparrow's--just in
front, and only recede a yard at a time as you push through the tall
grass, flags, and underwood. Stand where you can see the brook, not
too near, but so as to see it through a fringe of sedges and
willows. The pink lychnis or ragged robin grows among the grasses;
the iris flowers higher on the shore. The water-vole comes swimming
past, on his way to nibble the green weeds in the stream round about
the great branch which fell two winters since, and remains in the
water. Aquatic plants take root in its shelter. There, too, a
moorhen goes, sometimes diving under the bough. A blackbird flies up
to drink or bathe, never at the grassy edge, but always choosing a
spot where he can get at the stream free from obstruction. The sound
of many birds singing comes from the hedge across the meadow; it
mingles with the rush of the water through a drawn hatch--finches
and linnets, thrush and chiff-chaff, wren and whitethroat, and
others farther away, whose louder notes only reach. The singing is
so mixed and interwoven, and is made of so many notes, it seems as
if it were the leaves singing--the countless leaves--as if they had
voices.
A brightly-coloured bird, the redstart, appears suddenly in spring,
like a flower that has bloomed before the bud was noticed. Red is
his chief colour, and as he rushes out from his perch to take an
insect on the wing, he looks like a red streak. These birds
sometimes nest near farm-houses in the rickyards, sometimes by
copses, and sometimes in the deepest and most secluded combes or
glens, the farthest places from habitation; so that they cannot be
said to have any preference, as so many birds have, for a particular
kind of locality; but they return year by year to the places they
have chosen. The return of the corncrake or landrail is quickly
recognized by the noise he makes in the grass; he is the noisiest of
all the spring-birds. The return of the goat-sucker is hardly
noticed at first. This is not at all a rare, but rather a local
bird, well known in many places, but in others unnoticed, except by
those who feel a special interest. A bird must be common and
plentiful before people generally observe it, so that there are many
of the labouring class who have never seen the goat-sucker, or would
say so, if you asked them.
Few observe the migration of the turtle-doves, perhaps confusing
them with the wood-pigeons, which stay in the fields all the winter.
By the time the sap is well up in the oaks all the birds have
arrived, and the tremulous cooing of the turtle-dove is heard by
those engaged in barking the felled trees. The sap rises slowly in
the oaks, moving gradually through the minute interstices or
capillary tubes of this close-grained wood; the softer timber-trees
are full of it long before the oak; and when the oak is putting
forth its leaves it is high spring. Doves stay so much at this time
in the great hawthorns of the hedgerows and at the edge of the
copses that they are seldom noticed, though comparatively large
birds. They are easily seen by any who wish; the 'coo-coo' tells
where they are; and in walking gently to find them, many other
lesser birds will be observed. A wryneck may be caught sight of on a
bough overhead; a black-headed bunting, in the hedge where there is
a wet ditch and rushes; a blackcap, in the birches; and the
'zee-zee-zee' of the tree-pipit by the oaks just through the narrow
copse.
This is the most pleasant and the best way to observe--to have an
object, when so many things will be seen that would have been passed
unnoticed. To steal softly along the hedgerow, keeping out of sight
as much as possible, pausing now and then to listen as the 'coo-coo'
is approached; and then, when near enough to see the doves, to
remain quiet behind a tree, is the surest way to see everything
else. The thrush will not move from her nest if passed so quietly;
the chaffinch's lichen-made nest will be caught sight of against the
elm-trunk--it would escape notice otherwise; the whitethroat may be
watched in the nettles almost underneath; a rabbit will sit on his
haunches and look at you from among the bare green stalks of brake
rising; mice will rustle under the ground-ivy's purple flowers; a
mole perhaps may be seen, for at this time they often leave their
burrows and run along the surface; and, indeed, so numerous are the
sights and sounds and interesting things, that you will soon be
conscious of the fact that, while you watch one, two or three more
are escaping you. It would be the same with any other search as well
as the dove; I choose the dove because by then all the other
creatures are come and are busy, and because it is a fairly large
bird with a distinctive note, and consequently a good guide.
But these are not all the spring-birds: there are the whinchats,
fly-catchers, sandpipers, ring-ousels, and others that are
occasional or rare. There is not a corner of the fields, woods,
streams, or hills, which does not receive a new inhabitant: the
sandpiper comes to the open sandy margins of the pool; the
fly-catcher, to the old post by the garden; the whinchat, to the
furze; the tree-pipit, to the oaks, where their boughs overhang
meadow or cornfield; the sedge-reedling, to the osiers; the dove, to
the thick hedgerows; the wheatear, to the hills; and I see I have
overlooked the butcher-bird or shrike, as, indeed, in writing of
these things one is certain to overlook something, so wide is the
subject. Many of the spring-birds do not sing on their first
arrival, but stay a little while; by that time others are here.
Grass-blade comes up by grass-blade till the meadows are freshly
green; leaf comes forth by leaf till the trees are covered; and,
like the leaves, the birds gently take their places, till the hedges
are imperceptibly filled.
THE SPRING OF THE YEAR
'There's the cuckoo!' Everyone looked up and listened as the notes
came indoors from the copse by the garden. He had returned to the
same spot for the fourth time. The tallest birch-tree--it is as tall
as an elm--stands close to the hedge, about three parts of the way
up it, and it is just round there that the cuckoo generally sings.
From the garden gate it is only a hundred yards to this tree,
walking beside the hedge which extends all the way, so that the very
first time the cuckoo calls upon his arrival he is certain to be
heard. His voice travels that little distance with ease, and can be
heard in every room. This year (1881) he came back to the copse on
April 27, just ten days after I first heard one in the fields by
Worcester Park. The difference in time is usual; the bird which
frequents this copse does not arrive there till a week or so after
others in the neighbourhood may be heard calling. So marked is the
interval that once or twice I began to think the copse would be
deserted--there were cuckoos crying all round in the fields, but
none came near. He has, however, always returned, and this
difference in time makes his notes all the more remarked. I have,
therefore, always two dates for the cuckoo: one, when I first hear
the note, no matter where, and the second, when the copse bird
sings. When he once comes he continues so long as he stays in this
country, visiting the spot every day, sometimes singing for a few
minutes, sometimes for an hour, and one season he seemed to call
every morning and all the morning long. In the copse the ring of the
two notes is a little toned down and lost by passing through the
boughs, which hold and check the vibration of the sound. One year a
detached ash in Cooper's Field, not fifty yards from the houses, was
a favourite resort, and while perched there the notes echoed along
the buildings, one following the other as waves roll on the summer
sands. Flying from the ash to the copse, or along the copse hedge,
the cuckoo that year was as often seen as the sparrows, and as
little notice was taken of him. Several times cuckoos have flown
over this house, but just clearing the roof, and descending directly
they were over to the copse. He has not called so much this year
yet, but on the evening of May 8 he was crying in the copse at
half-past eight while the moon was shining.
On the morning of May 2, standing in the garden, or at the window of
any of the rooms facing south, you could hear five birds calling
together. The cuckoo was calling not far from the tallest birch;
there was a turtle-dove cooing in the copse much closer; and a
wood-pigeon overpowered the dove's soft voice every two or three
minutes--the pigeon was not fifty yards distant; a wryneck was
perched up in an oak at the end of the garden, and uttered his
peculiar note from time to time, and a nightingale was singing on
Tolworth Common, just opposite the house, though on the other side.
These were all audible, sometimes together, sometimes alternately;
and if you went to the northern windows or the front door, looking
towards the common, then you might also hear the chatter of a
brook-sparrow. The dove has a way of gurgling his coo in the throat.
The wryneck's 'kie-kie-kie,' the last syllable plaintively
prolonged, is not like the call or songs of other birds; it reminds
one of the peacock's strange scream, not in its actual sound, but
its singularity. When it is suddenly heard from the midst of the
thick green hedges of a summer's day, the bird itself unseen, it has
a weird sound, which does not accord, like the blackbird's whistle,
with our trees; it seems as if some tropical bird had wandered
hither. I have heard the wryneck calling in the oak at the end of
the garden every morning this season before rising, and suspect,
from his constant presence, that a nest will be built close by. Last
year the wryneck was a scarce bird in this neighbourhood; in all my
walks I heard but two or three, and at long intervals. This year
there are plenty; I hear them in almost every walk I take. There is
one in the orchard beside the Red Lion Inn; another frequents the
hedges and trees behind St. Matthew's Church; up Claygate Lane there
is another--the third or fourth gateway on the left side is the
place to listen. One year a pair built, I am sure, close to the
cottage which stands by itself near the road on Tolworth Common. I
saw them daily perched on the trees in front, and heard them every
time I passed. There were not many, or we did not notice them, at
home, and therefore I have observed them with interest. Now there is
one every morning at the end of the garden. This nightingale, too,
that sings on Tolworth Common just opposite, returns there every
year, and, like the cuckoo to the copse, he is late in his
arrival--at least a week later than other nightingales whose haunts
are not far off. His cover is in some young birch-trees, which form
a leafy thicket among the furze. On the contrary, the brook-sparrow,
or sedge-reedling, that sings there is the first, I think, of all
his species to return in this place. He comes so soon that,
remembering the usual date in other districts, I have more than once
tried to persuade myself that I was mistaken, and that it was not
the sedge-bird, but some other. But he has a note that it is not
possible to confuse, and as it has happened several seasons running,
this early appearance, there can be no doubt it is a fixed period
with him. These two, the sedge-bird and the nightingale, have their
homes so near together that the one often sings in the branches
above, while the other chatters in the underwood beneath.
Besides these, before I get up I hear now a wren regularly. Little
as he is, his notes rise in a crescendo above all; he sings on a
small twig growing from the trunk of an oak--a bare twig which gives
him a view all round. There is a bold ring in some of the notes of
the wren which might give an idea to a composer desirous of
producing a merry tune. The chirp of sparrows, of course, underlies
all. I like sparrows. The chirp has a tang in it, a sound within a
sound, just as a piece of metal rings; there is not only the noise
of the blow as you strike it, but a sound of the metal itself. Just
now the cock birds are much together; a month or two since the
little bevies of sparrows were all hens, six or seven together, as
if there were a partial separation of the sexes at times. I like
sparrows, and am always glad to hear their chirp; the house seems
still and quiet after this nesting-time, when they leave us for the
wheatfields, where they stay the rest of the summer. What happy days
they have among the ripening corn!
But this year the thrushes do not sing: I have listened for them
morning after morning, but have not heard them. They used to sing so
continuously in the copse that their silence is very marked: I see
them, but they are silent--they want rain. Nor have our old
missel-thrushes sung here this spring. One season there seem more of
one kind of bird, and another of another species. None are more
constant than the turtle-dove: he always comes to the same place in
the copse, about forty yards from the garden gate.
The wood-pigeons are the most prominent birds in the copse this
year. In previous seasons there were hardly any--one or two,
perhaps; sometimes the note was not heard for weeks. There might
have been a nest; I do not think so; the pigeons that come seemed
merely to rest _en route_ elsewhere--occasional visitors only. But
last autumn (1880) a small flock of seven or eight took up their
residence here, and returned to roost every evening. They remained
the winter through, and even in the January frosts, if the sun shone
a little, called now and then. Their hollow cooing came from the
copse at midday on January 1, and it was heard again on the 2nd.
During the deep snows they were silent, but I constantly saw them
flying to and fro, and immediately it became milder they recommenced
to call. So that the wood-pigeon's notes have been heard in the
garden--and the house--with only short intervals ever since last
October, and it is now May. In the early spring, while walking up
the Long Ditton road towards sunset, the place from whence you can
get the most extended view of the copse, they were always flying
about the tops of the trees preparatory to roosting. The bare
slender tips of the birches on which they perched exposed them
against the sky. Once six alighted on a long birch-branch, bending
it down with their weight, not unlike a heavy load of fruit. As the
stormy sunset flamed up, tinting the fields with momentary red,
their hollow voices sounded among the trees.