SOME OF THE FALCONIDÆ.
THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
(_Aquila chrysáëtus._)
In Scotland the living prey of the Golden Eagle, called there the Black
Eagle, consists largely of mountain hares, but it takes lambs, grouse
and other birds, sometimes even fawns and the young of the red-deer. In
Hungary he sweeps down towards autumn from the higher regions to the
vast plains, where he works havoc among the smaller wild animals,
especially the hares. Only when driven by extreme hunger will he feed on
carrion. On sunny days he soars circling above, with shrill squeal,
until quite lost to sight, looking as it were into the very face of the
sun.
The breeding places of the Eagle are confined in Great Britain to the
Highlands of Scotland and the islands of the Western side, and they are
now protected by the owners of deer forests from the grouse preservers
and sheep farmers who greatly thinned their numbers in former years. In
Ireland very few pairs now remain; they were nearly all destroyed there
by poison. They rarely visit England. So far from attacking any one who
visits the eyrie or tries to take an egg or young, those who know them
best say that they can be photographed without the least difficulty, in
fact the old birds will soar high above, seemingly ignoring the presence
of the intruders. A visitor to one eyrie, in which was a baby Eaglet,
found there four grouse, part of a hare, and a monk stoat! the latter,
as the gamekeeper said, being an unheard of thing. Sometimes an enraged
Hoodie Crow has been seen in full chase of a Golden Eagle which had been
too near the nest and young of the former.
Mr. Seton Gordon says that when this Eagle is pursued by a small bird,
the Mistle Thrush for instance, it never turns on its pursuer, although
it could kill it with the greatest ease; but as he adds “in nature it
seems to be the invariable rule that the pursued flies from the pursuer
no matter what the relative sizes may be.”
The Golden Eagle is now slightly on the increase in Scotland. It is a
most interesting bird, the type of nobility and of valour. The
naturalist with whom I collaborated over the signature, “A Son of the
Marshes,” has told of two live Golden Eagles which were chained to
stands just inside the courtyard of the old coaching inn at
Sittingbourne, in Kent, when he was a boy, objects of wondering delight
to himself and of much daily curiosity to the passengers on the coaches.
They snatched up more than one cat that came too close to their stands
after the meat that was given to them.
Many poets have sung of the Golden Eagle:
“On sounding pinion borne, he soars, and shrouds,
His proud aspiring head among the clouds.”
* * * * *
“Soaring
With upward pinions through the flood of day,
And, giving full bosom to the blaze, gain on the sun.”
* * * * *
“Trying his young against its rays,
To prove if they’re of generous breed, or base.”
* * * * *
Somerville, in “Field Sports,” gives some fine lines, descriptive of
this bird, untamed though we call it, as one of sport:
“In earlier times, monarchs of Eastern race
In their full blaze of pride--a story tells--
Trained up th’ imperial eagle, sacred bird.
Hooded, with jingling bells, she, perched on high,
Not, as when erst on golden wings she led
The Roman legions o’er the conquered globe,
Mankind her quarry, but a docile slave,
Tamed to the lure and careful to attend
Her master’s voice.”
This noble bird measures from 32 to 36 inches and the female is larger
than the male. In reality he is about the size of a goose but his mighty
wings and the breadth of tail make him seem far larger. The general
colour is dark brown, tawny about the head and nape, hence his name
golden. The tail has a greyish bar below, is mottled with dark grey in
the adults, but the basal half is white in the young. The legs are
feathered in front to the toes, thighs dark brown, toes yellow, claws
hooked and sharp. The beak is curved from the cere. The brown eye is
keen and strong as befits a bird who sights his quarry from afar. The
nest, or eyrie, which is placed on a crag in a mountainous district, but
often in a tree, is a large platform of sticks lined with softer
materials. The Eagle never uses dead branches but always breaks them
fresh off the tree. There are two and sometimes three dull greyish-white
eggs streaked and blotched with every shade of reddish-brown and lilac.
One of the eggs is generally addled. The young are covered with white
down. During incubation the Eagle keeps near to his eyrie.
[Illustration: HARMFUL.
THE RED KITE.]
THE RED KITE.
(_Milvus ictínus._)
The flight of this bird is very beautiful; it mounts in circles to a
great height, but swoops down quite near to the ground when pursuing its
prey. Its food consists of mice, lizards, adders, and unfledged birds;
but most of all it likes poultry, hens, ducks, geese. In this way it is
very hurtful. Fortunately, it is a cowardly bird, and a good clucking
hen can soon put it to flight.
In the spring when the flocks of geese with their young ones are grazing
in the tender grass, the Red Kite will suddenly appear and cause great
consternation among young and old. The poor bare-footed guardians of the
geese, strive to drive the intruder away with shouts, or by waving rags,
and throwing stones; and though they generally succeed, the bird
occasionally gains the day. This bird is nowhere very common, and is in
any case only a summer visitor. Its cry is a shrill _whéw, heh-heh-heh_.
* * * * *
This Kite was formerly known in Great Britain by its old Anglo-Saxon
name of Gled or Glead, which comes from its gliding flight, and is
styled Red Kite in order to distinguish it from its relatives. That it
was once common enough in the South of England, a proverb, still used in
the New Forest shows, “Yallow as a Kite’s claw” the folk say there in
describing one who has a jaundiced appearance. So common was it in the
streets of London up to 200 years ago, acting the part of a scavenger in
those days, that visitors from the Continent wrote of it. Some are now
living who knew it as fairly common in the wooded parts of Great
Britain--Ireland excepted--but the last nest in Lincolnshire, where it
once was abundant, was known in 1870. In Wales, where a few still breed,
the landowners are trying to protect what they consider an interesting
species. The use of its tail feathers for salmon-flies brings about the
bird’s destruction in Scotland, and the gamekeeper is its pronounced
enemy. In Ireland it has been seldom observed. Considering the adders,
rats, and enormous numbers of mice the Kite devours, the term hurtful,
as applied to it, ought perhaps to be modified.
A naturalist, writing in 1839, tells how he once took away a young Kite
from a nest containing two; it became very tame and would sit on his
hand, never attempting to hurt him with its sharp talons. Sometimes he
let it stray away and it always came home, though it might be out for a
day or two; until it intruded on an old crone in her cottage. She
quickly killed it as an ill-favoured fowl. I have seen a tame Kite swoop
down during a circling flight and take a mouse from the hand of the late
Lord Lilford as he sat, as was his wont, in his wheeled chair among his
favourite birds.
Macaulay, alluding to the Kite’s love for carrion writes:
“The kites know well the long stern swell
That bids the Romans close.”
Wordsworth was familiar with it in his walks:
“Near the midway cliff the silvered kite
In many a whistling circle wheels her flight.”
Robert Burns was not a friend of the bird, Quarles’ “brood-devouring
kite,” for he likened the “father of all evil” to it:
“Here is Satan’s picture,
Pouncing poor Redcastle
Like a blizzard gled,
Sprawlin’ like a taed.”
But Hurdis was more kind and just:
“Mark but the soaring kite and she will read
Brave rules for diet; teach thee how to feede;
She flies aloft; she spreads her ayrie plumes
Above the earth; above the nauseous fumes
Of dang’rous earth; she makes herself a stranger
T’ inferior things, and checks at every danger.”
We may perhaps be allowed, by the chariest of agriculturists, to say
that a species may be most undesirable in certain districts, but a
welcome and even useful bird in others; and this is specially true of
birds who devour carrion.
The Kite is about 24 inches in length. The back is rusty-red, the
feathers there having dark shaft lines and edges. The tail is strongly
forked. The female is less brightly coloured than the male and the young
still less so. The thighs are clad with feathers, the legs bare, claws
moderately strong and sharp. The bill is sickle-shaped and has a yellow
cere at its base. The irides are yellowish-white. The Kite is a
keen-sighted bird of prey, and builds its nest for the most part on the
highest trees in the woods. It lays two or three eggs, more rarely four,
with dirty blotches, smears, and spots on a greenish-white ground.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE RED-FOOTED FALCON.
MALE AND FEMALE.]
THE RED-FOOTED FALCON OR ORANGE-LEGGED HOBBY.
(_Falco vespertinus._)
Unlike all the rest of his congeners this beautiful Falcon lives
exclusively on insects. It is considered by the Mohammedan races as a
sacred bird, on account of the way in which it destroys grasshoppers.
Its flight is easy and bold, and the way in which he circles and floats
in the air is beautiful. The young ones are also fed on insects, and as
soon as they are fledged the little flock betake themselves to the
meadows or the seashore and there begin with zeal their work of insect
hunting. They settle on the meadows, on the freshly mown rows, and
destroy the grasshoppers, and when there is a plague of these insects
the Falcons are untiring in their work of extermination. It is one of
the most gentle of birds, and the young ones when caught become tame in
the course of a day. It can easily be seen from the expression of the
eyes that there is no savagery at all in its nature. How different from
the glance of the Sparrow-Hawk! It is a remarkable characteristic of
this bird that not only does it differ from others of its species in its
food, but also in regard to its nest. As a rule, it does not build a
nest, but occupies one, generally at the cost of a battle, belonging to
one of a colony of rooks. The fight for the nest is a fine spectacle,
for in it the bird exhibits to the full its fine art of flight. In
Hungary it is a regular migrant, and arrives in fairly large numbers.
* * * * *
The Red-footed Falcon is only a rare wanderer to the British Islands on
its migratory flight, and chiefly to England. One was recorded as shot
in Scotland in 1866--another, which is in the Dublin Museum, was taken
in County Wicklow in 1832. It is a pity that this useful species, living
as it chiefly does on insects and field mice, should only appear in our
country to be shot.
On the steppes of Orenburg in Russia it has decreased during the last
fifty years, owing apparently to the immigration of great numbers of the
Lesser Kestrel, which used to be rare there. The flight of the
Red-footed Falcon is not nearly so dashing as that of the Kestrel; you
can note a difference in the expression of the eye and the shape of
forehead of the two birds.
The clutch of eggs numbers five to six. They are of a yellowish-white
ground-colour, with spots and marblings, some darker, some lighter. The
nest structure is scanty, and is seldom built by the bird itself; it
appropriates the old nest of a Crow, Magpie or Rook. The male of this
species is for the most part slate-grey in colour, the thighs and under
side of the tail are bright chestnut-red. The iris and the feet are red.
The colouring of the female is more diversified. The mantle is
bluish-grey, with blackish stripes, like those on the tail; the sides of
the belly are light rusty-brown, throat and nape white. The forehead is
whitish; top of the head rust-coloured, legs and feet reddish. The claws
are nearly white.
THE COMMON BUZZARD.
(_Búteo vulgáris._)
This bird is equally at home in the plains and in the highlands. It goes
South in the winter, except in mild seasons. Like the Kite it soars to a
great height with a fine sweeping movement, crying “_keo-keo_.” It
descends and with an easy stroke hovers near the ground, from which it
seizes frogs, lizards, and even poisonous snakes; but besides marmots,
moles, rats, and leverets, its chief diet is mice, of which it requires
20 to 30 for one good meal. It usually perches on a hayrick, a post, or
a dry tree to watch for its prey, sitting motionless save for a movement
of its head from side to side, until a mouse emerges from its hole. Then
it raises its wings, darts downwards, and secures the booty. In years
when a superabundance of mice appear, the Buzzards also are numerous,
and fare plenteously. At such times, hundreds of tufts of mouse-hair are
found beneath the trees where the Buzzards spend the night.
It would be a good thing if the farmer were to set up perching posts in
the places which are infested by mice, so that the Buzzards might settle
on them to watch the ground. Posts about the height of a man, and the
thickness of an arm, with a cross piece at the top, would perfectly
serve the purpose.
The Buzzard, then, is useful; but it cannot be denied that it sometimes
does harm when it gets into a pheasant run, or places where partridges
and hares are preserved.
The bird is still common in Hungary.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE COMMON BUZZARD.]
The Buzzard may still be seen circling high in the air in some of our
own wilder wooded districts, uttering its mewing cry, especially in
Wales, but it is fast decreasing. A correspondent from South Devon wrote
me that it was not infrequently shot there. As Mr. Howard Saunders
wrote, “It used to breed in Norfolk and other counties abounding with
Partridges and ground game, without being considered incompatible with
their well-being; but now that Pheasant worship has increased, the doom
of that great devourer of field mice, moles, and other pests of the
farmer which has never been proved to be destructive to Partridges and
Pheasants is sealed. Still it might yet increase if fairly encouraged,
and it is an interesting sight, either soaring over head or resting in
its characteristic sluggish way on the branch of a tree. In the New
Forest this used to be a common enough sight, but the bark strippers
being at work just at the time of incubation, and knowing that they can
easily obtain five shillings for a good well-marked specimen--the
Buzzard has little chance now.
I find in my note book, “My glass shows a great brown and grey bird
resting on a stumpy willow--what they call here a Mouse-Buzzard--that
species so useful to the grazier, which we drive away by persecution.
Presently it rises high to soar in fine circles over its hunting ground.
The farmers encourage it because of its wonderful stowage capacity for
voles, rats, and other small deer,--the game-preservers persecute it,
because when pressed by hunger it takes old hen pheasants and even
larger creatures. On our friend’s estate here it is encouraged; the
stomach of a dead Buzzard has been found to contain thirty mice. Also it
is a deadly foe to the viper, although a bite from the latter has been
death to the Buzzard occasionally. A Buzzard was once found dead on its
nest with a viper lying under his body. The bird had carried it there to
devour. This is a gentle looking creature, yet when hard pressed by
hunger--madly ravenous, it has been known to attack an ox. Humans are
apt to become desperate under similar circumstances.
Said Butler in “Hudibras”:
“He’d prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl.”
There is a good deal of variation observable in the colouring of the
Buzzard, inclining sometimes to whitish, sometimes to brown or even to
blackish. With its thick-set body, this bird of prey exceeds the Raven
in size. Its constant distinguishing marks are these: The cere at the
base of the bill, and the legs, which are bare of feathers, are yellow;
the nostrils are oval; the iris grey or brown. The shafts of the
primaries and secondaries are white. The tail is crossed by seventeen
dark bands, and appears fore-shortened. The bill is curved and hooked.
The nest is built in the loftiest beeches and oaks. Three to four eggs
form the clutch. They are rarely white, more often clouded with
dirty-yellow on a lighter ground.
THE SPARROW-HAWK.
(_Accipiter nisus._)
Though the Sparrow-hawk, taken altogether, is a small bird, yet he is a
great thief, as may be gathered from his piercing eye. He is the terror
of all birds of the Starling size, which he seizes while on the wing.
Like a true robber, he watches for his booty in a secret kind of way;
having selected one from among a company of flying birds, he flies
below, among the furrows in the cornfield, along the hedges, and the
border of the woods, and on to a haystack. When he has seen his destined
prey he flutters sideways, rises into the air in circles, and when the
little birds fly up he sinks somewhat lower; when at the proper height
he claps his wings close to his body, and drops like a piece of lead on
to the chosen, fluttering victim, seizes it by the neck in its flight,
and strangles it with his sharp claws. He then flies slowly with it to a
bush or a grassy-mound and devours it.
It winters in Hungary; it is not rare, but at the same time not very
common. Its cry sounds like “_Kirk, kirk, kirk_,” or a rapid “_ki, ki,
ki_,” or a long drawn-out “_kāk, kāk_.”
This bird was the sporting Hawk of our forefathers, and the people of
the interior of Asia, and the Kurds, employ it for hunting at the
present day. Wherever it goes it carries devastation in its train,
especially among the domestic fowls. Its cry is loud and protracted.
“_Iwiā!_” it repeats quickly on seizing its prey. When
[Illustration: HARMFUL.
THE SPARROW-HAWK.]
pairing the note is _Gāck, gāck, gāck_,” and then more rapidly
“_Giā, giack, giack_.”
The Sparrow-hawk is well known all over Great Britain and also in
Ireland, in all those districts which are well timbered. Its food
consists for the most part of small birds, from the Thrush to the Wren.
These are snapped up as the bird glides stealthily along the hedgerows
or on the outskirts of some wood. In our own country it has been trained
to take Partridges, Quails, etc. In India and Japan also it is used by
the native falconers. It is a bold daring raider of our woods and
fields. This bird has a history which reaches back into the far past. It
received its latin name, _Accipiter nisus_, because of a myth relating
to King Nisus of Megara, who, it is said, had one hair of red-gold
colour, on the preservation of which depended the conservation of his
kingdom. Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, being in love with Minos, King
of Crete, son of Jupiter and Europa, treacherously cut the golden hair
of her father Nisus, and therefore he and his country were easily
vanquished. The gods, angry with the unnatural daughter, changed her
into a Lark, and Nisus into a Sparrow-hawk, under which form the unhappy
father pursues his daughter unceasingly, in order to satisfy a thirst
for vengeance. The ancients had all sorts of mysterious ideas, in
connection with the Sparrow-hawk; they believed, for one thing, that he
was the primogenitor of the Cuckoo. There is always something
interesting in such old myths, in spite of their apparent absurdity.
Somerville, in “Field Sports,” takes only the falconer’s view of the
Sparrow-hawk, when he says:
“Enough for me
To boast the gentle spar-hawk on my fist,
Or fly the partridge o’er the bristly field,
Retrieve the covey with my busy train,
Or with my soaring hobby, dare the lark.”
The male Sparrow-hawk is about 12 inches long, the female often 15
inches. It has a long tail; its legs are slender, long and bare of
feathers. The claws are sharp as needles. The toes are strong and the
middle one is very long and slender. The bill is abruptly curved from
the base, with a greenish-yellow cere. The plumage is bluish-grey above;
while beneath, on the belly, it is crossed with wavy lines on a light
ground. The tail has five dark ribbon-like bands across it. The
Sparrow-hawk nests by preference in spruce plantations at a height of
from 12 to 15 feet; it also makes use of deserted crows’ nests. The
clutch consists of four or five, occasionally six, and still more rarely
seven eggs, chalky-white or greenish in colour, with drab-coloured
spots.
[Illustration: Too often a victim.]
THE GOSHAWK.
(_Astur palumbárius._)
The Goshawk is bold in attack, and powerful in thrust. It is
comparatively easy to tame, or at all events shows a certain
tractability. Its aspect is cunning and cruel, and its claws must be
carefully avoided. It is the terror of the poultry-yard and the
dove-cote. When pursuing its prey nothing can divert its attention. It
will even penetrate into the interior of a house. It will steal any
warm-blooded animal that it can overcome, even an old hare. It seizes
little Siskins, Goldfinches, Weasels, squirrels, and even mice. It lives
in a constant state of warfare with the Crows. The latter birds fall
upon it in flocks, pull and touzle it, when they catch it, but the Hawk
usually carries the day. With a mighty thrust he seizes his prey from
among the black mass, and gets away from his pursuers. It likes best
districts where wood and field alternate, but it also settles in the
neighbourhood of villages where it causes great damage among the
poultry.
Next to the Lanner--_falco lanarius_--the Goshawk was the favourite
among sportsmen in the olden days as indeed it still is among the
nomadic tribes of Asia.
The Goshawk--Goosehawk--comes to Great Britain as an occasional visitor
only, in autumn, winter, and now and again in the spring. There used to
be some eyries in old fir-woods in the valley of the Spey a century ago,
but in Scotland the Peregrine Falcon is called the Goshawk. In some old
Scottish works on Falconry it is stated that the best Goshawks came from
Ireland.
[Illustration: CHIEFLY HURTFUL.
THE GOSHAWK.]
I know a place in Southern Germany, a sandy, raised piece of ground, in
the middle of a wood, near the point of a peninsula, where only high
fir-trees are; and there the bold Goshawk has his bulky nest which he
uses year after year. On a clearing close to the Goshawk’s nest there
lie innumerable remains of Starlings and young hares. The Starlings fear
him greatly; when he comes gliding low in pursuit of his quarry over the
marshy ground beyond his wood, they keep close to the Crows, which are
numerous on this peninsula. They feed with these birds whenever the
Goshawk is in their neighbourhood, knowing that the Crows will attack
him sturdily. During the skirmish with the Crows, the knowing Starlings
make away from the scene.
The Goshawk punishes that bad but beautiful bird, the Jay, who does more
harm here than the Sparrow-Hawk and all the three species of
Butcher-birds put together. The Sparrow-Hawk attacks the Jay also; but
he only gets the better of him after a long struggle, whereas the
Goshawk punishes quickly.
As I stood under the high fir-tree from which a pair of Goshawks took
flight on my approach, one of the sudden thunderstorms common to the
neighbourhood at this time of year broke overhead, and I had to shelter
long, so that I had time to marvel at the great quantity of creatures
these birds had taken to their family larder--hares, starlings, pigeons,
ducks, and poultry of all sizes. The farmer here dreads it more than he
does any other bird of prey, and we have no cause to regret its ceasing
to build in our midst. A male and a female bird were caught in a trap in
the forest of Bowland, Lancashire, about the year 1835; now only an
occasional bird is to be seen.
A French writer says that the Goshawk is still used in Persia in hunting
the gazelle, and that it is trained to feed on that creature’s beautiful
eyes by placing its food in the empty eye-sockets of a stuffed gazelle,
so that when used in the hunt the Goshawk stops its victim by attacking
and tearing out its eyes--a horribly cruel form of sport.
Keats writes:
“O Sorrow! why dost burrow
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?”
and Young:
“Pride, like hooded hawks in darkness soars
From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.”
“Mark the gay squadron through the copse descending
The greyhound with his silken leash contending
Wreathed the lithe neck; and on the falconer’s hand
With restless perch and pinions broad depending,
Each hooded goshawk kept her eager stand.”
Burns says:
“Swift as a gos drives on a wheeling hare.”
In the young bird the underpart is clay colour with narrow cross stripes
and large longitudinal flecks. The iris golden-yellow; feet sulphur
yellow. Claws strong and sharp. The adult has a narrow white line about
the ear coverts and the eye; upper parts ash-brown; four broad dark bars
on the tail; underparts white, thickly barred with ash-brown; cere,
iris, and legs yellow. Length of the male 20 inches; of the female 23
inches.
The large nest of the Goshawk is composed of hard twigs. The eggs,
usually four, are pale bluish-grey, but later they become dirty
greenish-yellow, and sometimes have a few rusty or olive markings.
THE HOBBY.
(_Falco subbuteo._)
Called in Germany the Tree Falcon.
Of all the Hungarian falcons the Hobby has the swiftest flight; he even
pursues the Swallow with success. All the small birds scream with terror
when this bird appears. The Swallow dart in an agony of fear under their
eaves; the Larks and other small birds press themselves down on the
earth; the Quails and Partridges do the same. If a little bird happens
to be in flight it tries with all its strength to soar higher and
higher, so that the Falcon may remain beneath it, otherwise it is a lost
bird. If the Falcon gets above, it shoots like an arrow, with closed
wings, down on to the bird. The Hobby does not despise a grasshopper as
food, in the twilight a moth does not come amiss; indeed it has lately
been observed that it sometimes snaps at bees. But it does not eat
carrion.
In the olden days the Hobby has also been used to hunt small birds.
At the present day it is a great friend to the railway, where it circles
about the trains and drives away the small birds. It is by no means rare
in Hungary.
In England the Hobby arrives about the latter part of May, and it may at
intervals be found breeding in most of the Southern counties, notably in
Hampshire. Once it nested in Essex pretty regularly, also to a certain
extent in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk, rarely
in Yorkshire, sometimes in the Midlands, but in the West and in Wales it
is scarce. It has never been known to nest in Scotland, and very few
Hobbies have been seen in Ireland.
[Illustration: HARMFUL.
THE HOBBY.]
It will follow the sportsman and seize a Quail in front of him,
according to the late Howard Saunders, but Lord Lilford demurred to
this, and said a Hobby will wait on over ranging dogs, on the chance of
a young or moulting Skylark, but never attack game birds, as it could
not hold them. It is a terror to Larks as well as Swallows, but it does
some good in reducing the numbers of cockchafers and dragonflies, which
are favourite articles of its diet, with other small insects.
In our country it never makes a nest for itself, but it takes possession
of one that has been built by a Crow, Magpie or other bird, in a tree.
The female has a curious habit of brooding on an empty nest or upon eggs
of the Kestrel before she lays her own. In autumn it leaves the
woodlands to take to the open country.
Cowley wrote:
“Like larks when they the tyrant hobby spy,
Some wonderstrook, stand fix’d, some fly.”
And Dryden:
“Larks lie dar’d to shun the hobbies’ flight.”
The Hobby is as big as a small pigeon, but has a slenderer body. The tip
of the wing reaches to the end of the tail or even beyond it. Legs and
cere are yellow. The eyes are dark brown, with a keen expression. The
serrated bill is yellowish at its base, but black at the tip, which is
strongly curved. The back is slate-coloured, while breast and belly are
marked with black longitudinal stripes on a light ground. The Hobby
builds its nest in the tops of high trees in small woods. The eggs
number three or four, and are marked with thick rusty-brown spots and
streaks on a ground-colour of pale buff.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE KESTREL.]
THE KESTREL.
(_Falco tinnúnculus._)
The Kestrel also has a beautiful flight; but it is not able to catch
small birds when on the wing. It is a master in the art of remaining in
one spot in the air, with a very slight apparent motion of the wings. It
stops suddenly in its flight at about the height of an ordinary church
tower, bends its spread tail stiffly downwards and beats rapidly with
its wings. It often poises itself in this way over meadows, cornfields
and moorlands, and marks with its brown, sharp eyes any mouse or marmot
that slips out of its hole. Sometimes it finds a brood of young birds,
and these it does not spare. Crickets, grasshoppers and lizards also
fall a prey to this hunter, but mice form its chief diet, and for this
reason the bird is useful. When it has caught sight of its prey from a
height in the air it suddenly closes its wings and drops, but when quite
near the ground it spreads them again, and thus picks up its victim. It
eats the smaller insects out of its claws while flying; but larger prey
it carries to a quiet spot. Its twittering cry is often heard; it sounds
like “_Klee, klee, klee_.” It leaves Hungary in severe winters. The
Kestrel is the most numerous of the birds of prey in that country, where
it is quite at home, even in the rush and noise of towns.
* * * * *
The Kestrel is commonly known as the Wind-hover, on account of its habit
of hanging motionless in the air against the wind. It has a very
graceful flight. This Falcon is quite the commonest of the British birds
of prey, and we should have still more of these useful Falcons in our
country were it not for the prejudice and ignorant ideas of so many of
our gamekeepers and farmers. In Scotland the former are becoming much
more aware of the harmlessness and the usefulness of the Kestrel.
Considering the fact that the creatures forming its principal food are
mice, it is strange that our agriculturalists have not valued its
services sooner. The gracefulness of its flight makes it an interesting
point in a landscape. It is as well known to country children in our
Southern counties as is the Cuckoo. If their nest is robbed before the
full number of eggs is laid the pair will remove such eggs as are left
to the next suitable empty nest they can find and proceed with their
family duties there. The Kestrel is a pleasanter bird to keep as a pet
than others of his family; it is easily tamed, and afterwards can be
kept at liberty, as it will come to call or whistle if it is fed
regularly at the same time and place. The late Lord Lilford, who knew
more practically about Falcons than most ornithologists said: “I cannot
altogether acquit the Kestrel of an occasional bit of poaching; a small
Partridge or Pheasant astray in the grass is no doubt too tempting a
morsel to be resisted, but any petty larceny of this sort may well be
condoned on account of the great number of field-mice and voles
destroyed by these birds.” In Spain its food consists chiefly of
beetles.
A great many of our Kestrels leave us at the approach of winter when the
food they like best is too hard to find.
* * * * *
The Kestrel is about the same size as the Hobby, but is a slenderer
bird, and its tail is longer. The tail is of a beautiful grey colour and
extends far beyond the tips of the wings. Near its extremity it is
adorned with a broad, dark, transverse bar; the tip itself, however, is
white. The back is reddish with dark, triangular markings; the flanks
light-coloured with black longitudinal marks. The bill is curved from
the base, and is short and strongly hooked. Cere and feet are yellow.
The tail of the female has several narrow transverse bars, with tip as
in the male. For nesting places the Kestrel chooses by preference ruins,
towers, and lofty crags, very seldom selecting a site in a tree. It lays
four or five eggs, rarely more than six. They are thickly spotted and
splashed with brownish-red on a light ground.
* * * * *
The Merlin or Stone-hawk (_Falco æsalon_) is the smallest bird of our
British Falcons. It breeds regularly on our moorlands, not in such
numbers in the South as beyond Derbyshire. In many parts of Wales too it
nests. It is fairly common too in the mountainous parts of Ireland. In
the autumn the dashing little fellow comes down to the coast and bays
where he can prey on Dunlins, Snipe and other waders. He has high
courage and will kill birds you would not think him capable of
mastering. The Merlin will kill the Skylark if pinched by hunger, but
both he and the Hobby prefer birds of the Finch family.
[Illustration: HARMFUL.
THE MARSH-HARRIER.]
THE MARSH-HARRIER.
(_Circus œruginosus._)
(Formerly known as the Moor-Buzzard.)
The Marsh-Harrier is one of the shyest and most cunning of our birds of
prey. It immediately attracts attention by its size and its constant
activity; but it requires a good sportsman to get a shot at it. It is
most easily got at when feasting among the high grass at the edge of the
reedy marsh; it then forgets to be prudent and sometimes takes flight
only too late. Early and late it hovers over the borders of the marshes
and reed-beds, sweeping, circling without rest, now and then making a
swift descent into the rushes and the sedges and securing its prey.
There is no small creature of the marsh, the bog, the heath, or the moor
that this bird will not take; it works special destruction among the
singing birds which nest among the reeds and sedges. It does not wait
for the young birds to be hatched, but is very clever in breaking open
the eggs and devouring the contents, always bringing them on to dry land
for the purpose.
The birds of the reed-land know this raider well, and as soon as the
first flap of his wing is heard the terrified Lapwings, Gulls, Terns,
and others, arise with loud cries and attack him tooth and nail. When
brooding it lives almost exclusively by egg stealing; later on the moor
hens afford provender for this insatiable thief. It leaves Hungary for
the winter, but returns in early spring. Its cry varies. In spring it is
“_kei, kei_,” in autumn it is like that of the Jay. The female utters a
loud “_pitz! pitz_.”
This bird is common in the Hungarian marshes.
The drainage of our Eastern fens and the reclaiming of marshland in
Yorkshire, Lancashire, Shropshire, Dorset, Somerset, and some other
counties once frequented by this bird has caused it to become scarce
where formerly it used to breed freely. Sometimes a pair having wandered
over from Holland will try to rear a brood in our Norfolk Broads
district, but the sportsman--sic--and the collector will not allow them
to succeed. In Ireland the bird was formerly common enough about Lough
Erne, along the Shannon valley, in Co. Cork, and other districts, but
during the last fifty years the gamekeepers have nearly exterminated it
by poison. It is known to be a great destroyer of the eggs and young of
Waterfowl, but during most of the year it feeds on small mammals, frogs,
and reptiles as well as birds.
This is the Duck-Hawk of the marshmen. When the sun is glinting through
the mist he may be seen gliding hither and thither, low down over the
grey-green flats. At noon he is high up in the clear blue sky. The
tender young ducks--called “flappers” are his favourite diet.
Jean Ingelow, in “The Four Bridges,” says:
“The bold Marsh-Harrier wets her tawny breast--
We scared her oft in childhood from her prey.”
The Marsh-Harrier is smaller and noticeably slimmer in build than the
Buzzard. The tail is long, the legs are long, thin, and bare of
feathers, and the claws sharp. The Head has something about it that
suggests an Owl, for the facial disk is conspicuous and the eyes glance
forwards as well as to the side. The bird’s plumage is brown, very dark
in places: but the head is light-coloured, being whitish in males and
yellowish in females. Inhabiting reed-beds, the bird builds its nest
among reed-stems or bulrushes. The eggs, five or less frequently six in
number, are greenish-white in colour.
THE HEN-HARRIER.
(_Circus cyaneus._)
The nest of the Hen-Harrier is built of roots and plant stems, is soft
within and is often placed on the ground; if in heather, or dried up
marsh, it is often a foot high. From four to six bluish-white eggs,
sometimes yellowish-brown or rufous markings, are laid.
This bird of prey has a light, sweeping flight. It leaves Hungary in
winter. It hunts alone and takes its food exclusively from the ground.
This consists of small mammals, especially mice, the bird is also
particularly fond of robbing the nests of such birds as build on the
ground; it sucks the eggs and devours the small downy creatures within
them. It also takes the little hares--in short, it is one of the most
destructive birds in the fields which it frequents and hunts over
untiringly. On the other hand, there comes a time when the number of
field mice has increased beyond measure. Then the Hen-Harrier joins the
other birds of prey and destroys enormous numbers of those enemies of
the farmer. For this reason the species should not be altogether
exterminated.
* * * * *
Of late years the numbers of the Hen-Harrier have been greatly thinned
by game-preservers, and it only nests now on a few of our largest and
wildest moorlands and wastes. Even in Scotland it is fast decreasing so
far as nesting goes, whereas it was once plentiful there. Still there
are a fairly large number of young birds in the autumn, and then, too,
the adult birds come down from the higher-lying districts to the
lowlands. It used
[Illustration: HARMFUL.
THE HEN-HARRIER.]
to breed in the Fen-lands of East Anglia until the reclaiming of marsh
lands drove it away. As to this I may be allowed to quote again here
from an old ballad written before the fens were drained, it gives the
feeling of the fen-dwellers of that day.
“Come brethren of the water, and let us all assemble,
To treat upon this matter which makes us quake and tremble;
For we shall rue it, if it be true that fens be undertaken,
And where we feed on fen and reed, they’ll feed both beef and bacon.
* * * * *
The feathered fowl have wings, to fly to other nations,
But we have no such things to help our transportation;
We must give place--oh, grievous case--to hornéd beast and cattle,
Except that we can all agree to drive them out to battle.”
“As a gamekeeper once said to me,” says ‘A Son of the Marshes,’ “The
sooner them big ’uns is gone or done for the better; there’s nothin’ but
a chow-row from morning to night. Our head ’un says they must be knocked
over, and the guv’nor he’s got the same tale. They can’t git at ’em no
more than we. It ain’t so much what they ketches, tho’ they tries hard
at it, as what they frightens off the fields; it spiles the shootin’.
Them ’ere damned great things hovers an’ swishes after the birds till at
last the coveys makes for the hedgerows an’ you has to git ’em out as if
you was beatin’ for cocks. We ain’t had none o’ them ’ere blue an’
ring-tailed hawks--harriers--’bout here lately. They’re reg’lar
wussers; they kills ’em dead at one clip, an’ takes ’em out in the
middle o’ them big fields to eat ’em. They ain’t goin’ to let you get
near ’em, not they, an’ they wun’t fly over a place where you kin hide.
I’ve tried to git at ’em, but it all cum to nothin’. Them ’ere blue
hawks an’ ring-tails would circumvent the devil.”
The adult male has the upper parts a slatey-grey tone of colour, the
rump white, throat and breast bluish-grey--under parts white. The female
is brown above, the neck rufous-brown streaked with white--there is a
distinct facial ruff, giving the head an owl-like appearance, suggesting
that this species might be the link between Owls and Hawks--tail brown,
having five darker bars, hence the old name of Ring-tail given to the
female of this bird; under parts buff-brown with darker stripes. Length
21 inches. The young resemble the female.