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BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES
by
EDMUND SELOUS
With 12 Headings and 6 Full-Page Illustrations by G. E. Lodge
London: George Allen, 156
Charing Cross Road. MCMV
[All rights reserved]
[Illustration: FLINT HOUSE, ICKLINGHAM]
PREFACE
In the autumn of 1899 I came to live at Icklingham in Suffolk, and
remained there, with occasional intervals of absence, for the next
three years. During the greater part of that period I kept a day-to-day
journal of field observation and reflection, and the following pages
represent, for the most part, a portion of this. They are the work of
one who professes nothing except to have used his eyes and ears to
the best of his ability, and to give only, both in regard to fact and
theory, the result of this method--combined, of course, in the latter
case, with such illustrations and fortifications as his reading may
have allowed him to make use of, and without taking into account some
passing reference or allusion. That my notes relate almost entirely
to birds, is not because I am less interested in other animals, but
because, with the exception of rabbits, there are, practically, no
wild quadrupeds in England. I am quite aware that a list can be
made out, but let any one sit for a morning or afternoon in a wood,
field, marsh, swamp, or pond, and he will then understand what I
mean. In fact, to be a field naturalist in England, is to be a field
ornithologist, and more often than not--I speak from experience--a
waster of one’s time altogether. Unless you are prepared to be always
unnaturally interested in the commonest matters, and not ashamed to
pass as a genius by a never-ending barren allusion to them, be assured
that you will often feel immensely dissatisfied with the way in which
you have spent your day. Many a weary wandering, many an hour’s
waiting and waiting to see, and seeing nothing, will be yours if you
aim at more than this--and to read a book is fatal. But there is the
_per contra_, and what that is I know very well. Of a few such _per
contras_--they were to me, and I can only hope that some may be so to
the reader--these “Bird Life Glimpses” are made up.
EDMUND SELOUS.
CHELTENHAM, _May 1905_.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
“AT THE QUIET EVENFALL” _To face page_ 8
_Wood-Pigeons coming in to Roost_
THE RULES OF PRECEDENCE ” ” 54
_Hooded Crows and Rooks Feeding_
A GRAND DESCENT ” ” 80
_Herons coming down on to Nest_
A STATUESQUE FIGURE ” ” 119
_Snipe, with Starlings Bathing, and Peewits_
INDIGNANT ” ” 131
_Starling in possession of Woodpecker’s
Nesting Hole_
A PRETTY PAIR ” ” 198
_Long-Tailed Tits Building_
CHAPTER HEADPIECES
PAGE
PHEASANT ROOSTING 1
YOUNG NIGHTJARS 21
ROOKS AT NEST 51
HERON FISHING 72
MALE WHEAT-EAR 106
A “MURMURATION” OF STARLINGS 129
PEEWITS AND NEST 163
COAL-TIT 194
GREEN WOODPECKER 224
MARTINS BUILDING NEST 239
MOORHEN AND NEST 261
DABCHICKS AND NEST 296
[Illustration: PHEASANT ROOSTING]
BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES
CHAPTER I
Icklingham, in and about which most of the observations contained
in the following pages have been made, is a little village of West
Suffolk, situated on the northern bank of the river Lark. It lies
between Mildenhall and Bury St. Edmunds, amidst country which is very
open, and so sandy and barren that in the last geological survey it is
described as having more the character of an Arabian desert than an
ordinary English landscape. There are, indeed, wide stretches where
the sand has so encroached upon the scanty vegetation of moss and
lichen that no one put suddenly down amongst them would think he were
in England, if it happened to be a fine sunny day. These arid wastes
form vast warrens for rabbits always, whilst over them, from April to
October, roam bands of the great plover or stone-curlew, whose wailing,
melancholy cries are in artistic unison with their drear desolation.
The country is very flat: no hill can be seen anywhere around, but the
ground rises somewhat, from the river on the northern side, and this
and a few minor undulations of the sand look almost like hills, against
the general dead level. I have seen the same effect on the great bank
of the Chesil, and read of it, I think, in the desert of Sahara.
These steppes on the one side of the river pass, on the other, into
a fine sweep of moorland, the lonely road through which is bordered,
on one side only, by a single row of gaunt Scotch firs. Westwards,
towards Cambridgeshire, the sand-country, as it may be termed, passes,
gradually, into the fenlands, which, in a modified, or, rather,
transitional form, lie on either side the Lark, as far as Icklingham
itself.
The Lark, which, for the greater part of its limited course, is a
fenland stream, rises a little beyond Bury (the St. Edmunds is never
added hereabouts), and enters the Ouse near Littleport. It is quite a
small river; but though its volume, after the first twelve miles or so,
does not increase to any very appreciable extent, the high artificial
banks, through which, with a view to preventing flooding, it is made to
flow, after entering the fenlands proper, give it a much more important
appearance, and this is enhanced by the flatness of the country on
either side: a flatness, however, which does not--nor does it ever,
in my opinion--prevent its being highly picturesque. Those, indeed,
who cannot feel the charm of the fenlands should leave nature--as
distinct from good hotels--alone. For myself, I sometimes wonder that
all the artists in the world are not to be found there, sketching; but
in spite of the skies and the windmills and Ely Cathedral in the near,
far, or middle distance, I have never met even one. It is to the fens
that the peewits, which, before, haunted the river and the country
generally, retire towards the end of October, nor do they return till
the following spring, so that Icklingham during this interval is
almost--indeed, I believe quite--without a peewit. Bury is eight miles
from Icklingham, and about half-way between them the country begins to
assume the more familiar features of an English landscape, so that the
difference which a few miles makes is quite remarkable.
Fifty years ago, I am told, there were no trees in this part of the
world, except a willow here and there along the course of the stream,
and a few huge ones of uncouth and fantastic appearance, which are
sometimes called “she oaks” by the people. The size of these trees is
often quite remarkable, and their wood being, fortunately, valueless,
they are generally allowed to attain to the full of it. They grow
sparingly, yet sometimes in scattered clusters, and the sand, with the
wide waste of which their large, rude outlines and scanty foliage has
a sort of harmony, seems a congenial soil for them. They are really,
I believe, of the poplar tribe, which would make them “poppels”
hereabouts, were this understood. These trees, with some elders and
gnarled old hawthorns, which the arid soil likewise supports, rather
add to than diminish the desolate charm of the country, and, as I say,
till fifty years ago there were no others. Then, however, it occurred
to landowners, or to some local body or council, that sand ought to
suit firs, and now, as a consequence, there are numerous plantations of
the Scotch kind, with others of the larch and spruce, or of all three
mingled together.
Thus, in the more immediate proximity of Icklingham we have the warrens
or sandy steppes, the moorlands passing here and there into green seas
of bracken, the river, with a smaller stream that runs into it, and
these fir plantations, which are diversified, sometimes, with oaks,
beeches, and chestnuts, and amidst which an undergrowth of bush and
shrub has long since sprung up. Beyond, on the one hand, there are the
fenlands, and, on the other, ordinary English country. In all these
bits there is something for a bird-lover to see, though, I confess,
I wish there was a great deal more. The plantations perhaps give the
greatest variety. Dark and sombre spots these make upon the great
steppes or moors, looking black as night against the dusky red of
the wintry sky, after the sun has sunk. In them one may sit silent,
as the shadows fall, and see the pheasants steal or the wood-pigeons
sweep to their roosting-trees, listening to the “mik, mik, mik” of
the blackbird, before he retires, the harsh strident note of the
mistle-thrush, or the still harsher and more outrageous scolding of the
fieldfare. Blackbirds utter a variety of notes whilst waiting, as one
may say, to roost. The last, or the one that continues longest, is the
“mik, mik” that I have spoken of, and this is repeated continuously for
a considerable time. Another is a loud and fussy sort of “chuck, chuck,
chuck,” which often ends in almost an exaggeration of that well-known
note which is generally considered to be the one of alarm, but which,
in my experience, has, with most other cries to which some special
meaning is attributed, a far wider and more generalised significance.
As the bird utters it, it flies, full of excitement, to the tree or
bush in which it means to pass the night, and here, whilst the darkness
deepens, it “mik, mik, mik, mik, miks,” till, as I suppose, with the
last “mik” of all, the head is laid beneath the wing, and it goes
peacefully to sleep. It is now that the pheasants come stealing, often
running, to bed. You may hear their quick, elastic little steps upon
the pine-needles, as they pass you, sometimes, quite close. I have had
one run almost upon me, as I sat, stone still, in the gloom, seen it
pause, look, hesitate, retreat, return again, to be again torn with
doubt, and, finally, hurry by fearfully, and only a pace or two off,
to fly into a tree just behind me. This shows, I think, that pheasants
have their accustomed trees, where they roost night after night. In
my experience this is the habit of most birds, but, after a time, the
favourite tree or spot will be changed for another, and thus it will
vary in a longer period, though not in a very short one. This, at
least, is my idea; assurance in such a matter is difficult. The aviary
may help us here. Two little Australian parrakeets, that expatiate
in my greenhouse, chose, soon after they were introduced, a certain
projecting stump or knob of a vine, as a roosting-place. For a week or
two they were constant to this, but, after that, I found them roosting
somewhere else, and they have now made use, for a time, of some
half-dozen places, coming back to their first choice in due course, and
leaving it again for one of their subsequent ones. Part of this process
I have noticed with some long-tailed tits, which, for a night or two,
slept all together, not only in the same bush but on the same spray of
it. Then, just like the parrakeets, they left it, but I was not able to
follow them beyond this. It would seem, therefore, that birds, though
they do not sleep anywhere, but have a bedroom, like us, yet like
variety, in respect of one, within reasonable limits, and go “from the
blue bed to the brown.”
Pheasants are sometimes very noisy and sometimes quite silent in
roosting, and this is just one of those differences which might be
thought to depend on the weather. For some time it seemed to me as if
a sudden sharp frost, or a fall of snow, made the birds clamorous,
but hardly had I got this fixed, as a rule, in my mind, when there
came a flagrant contradiction of it, and such contradictions were soon
as numerous as the supporting illustrations. I noticed, too, that on
the most vociferous nights some birds would be silent, whilst even
on the most silent ones, one or two were sure to be noisy, so that
I soon came to think that if their conduct in this respect did not
depend, purely, on personal caprice, it at least depended on something
beyond one’s power of finding out. The cries of all sorts of birds are
supposed to have something to do with the weather, but I believe that
any one who set himself seriously to test this theory would soon feel
like substituting “nothing” for “something” in the statement of the
proposition. It is much as with Sir Robert Redgauntlet’s jackanape,
I suspect--“ran about the haill castle chattering, and yowling, and
pinching, and biting folk, specially before ill weather or disturbances
in the state.” Every one knows the loud trumpety note, as I call it,
with which a pheasant flies up on to its perch, for the night. It is
a tremendous clamour, and continues, sometimes, for a long time after
the bird is settled. But sometimes, after each loud flourish, there
comes an answer from another bird, which is quite in an undertone; in
fact a different class of sound altogether, brief, and without the
harsh resonance of the other, so that you would not take it to be the
cry of a pheasant at all were it not always in immediate response to
the loud one. It proceeds, too, from the same spot or thereabouts.
What, precisely, is the meaning of this soft answering note? What is
the state of mind of the bird uttering it, and by which of the sexes
is it uttered? It is the cock that makes the loud trumpeting, and were
another cock to answer this, one would expect him to do so in a similar
manner. It is in April that my attention has been more particularly
drawn to this after-sound, so that, though early in the month, one
may suppose the male pheasant to have mated with at least a part of
his harem. One would hardly expect, however, to find a polygamous
bird on terms of affectionate connubiality with one or other of his
wives, and yet this little duet reminds me, strongly, of what one
may often hear, sitting in the woods, when wood-pigeons are cooing in
the spring. Almost always they are invisible, and it is by the ear,
alone, that one must judge of what is going on. Everywhere comes the
familiar “Roo, coo, oo, oo-oo,” and this, if you are not very close, is
all you hear, and it suggests that one bird is sitting alone--at least
alone in its tree, though answered perhaps from another. Sometimes,
however, one happens to be at the foot of the tree oneself, and then,
if one listens attentively, one will generally hear a single note, much
lower, and even softer than the other which precedes it, a long-drawn,
hoarse--but sweetly, tenderly hoarse--“oo.” The instant this has been
uttered, comes the note we know, the two tones being different, and
suggesting--which, I believe, is the case--that the first utterance is
the tender avowal of the one bird, the next the instant and impassioned
response of the other.
There is, perhaps, as much monotonous sameness--certainly as much of
expressive tenderness--in the coo of the wood-pigeon as in any sound
in nature, and yet, if one listens a little, one will find a good deal
of variety in it. Every individual bird has its own intonation, and
whilst, in the greatest number, this “speaks of all loves” as it should
do, in some few a coo seems almost turned into a scream. Sometimes,
too, I have remarked a peculiar vibration in the cooing of one of
these birds, due, I think, to there being hardly any pause between the
several notes, which are, usually, well separated. Such a difference
does this make in the character of the sound, that, at first, one
might hardly recognise it as belonging to the same species. Even in
the typical note, as uttered by any individual bird, there is not
so much sameness as one might think. It is repeated, but not exactly
repeated. Three similar, or almost similar, phrases, as one may call
them, are made to vary considerably by the different emphasis and
expression with which they are spoken. In the first of these the bird
says, “Roo, coo, oo-oo, oo-oo,” with but moderate insistence, as though
stating an undeniable fact. Then quickly, but still with a sufficiently
well-marked pause, comes the second, “Rōō, cōō, oo-ōō, oo-ōō,” with
very much increased energy, as though warmly maintaining a proposition
that had been casually laid down. In the third, “roo, coo,” &c., there
is a return to the former placidity, but now comes the last word on the
subject: “ook?” which differs in intonation from anything that has gone
before, there being a little rise in it, an upturning which makes it a
distinct and unmistakable interrogative, an “Is it not so?” to all that
has gone before.
[Illustration: “AT THE QUIET EVENFALL”
_Wood-Pigeons coming in to Roost_]
Considerable numbers of wood-pigeons roost, during winter, in the
various fir plantations which now make a feature of the country round
Icklingham. They retire somewhat early, so that it is still the
afternoon, rather than the evening, when one hears the first great
rushing sound overhead, and a first detachment come sweeping over the
tops of the tall, slender firs, and shoot, like arrows, into them.
Then come other bands, closely following one another. The birds fly in
grandly. Sailing on outspread wings, they give them but an occasional
flap, and descend upon the dark tree-tops from a considerable height.
The grand rushing sound of their wings, so fraught with the sense
of mystery, so full of hurry and impatience, has a fine inspiriting
effect; it sweeps the soul, one may say, filling it with wild elemental
emotions. What is this? Is it not a yearning back to something that one
once was, a backward-rushing tide down the long, long line of advance?
I believe that most of those vague, undefined, yet strongly pleasurable
emotions that are apt to puzzle us--such, for instance, as Wordsworth
looks upon as “intimations of immortality”--have their origin in the
ordinary laws of inheritance. What evidence of such immortality as is
here imagined do these supposed intimations of it offer? Do they not
bear a considerable resemblance to the feelings which music calls up in
us, and which Darwin has rationally explained?[1] “All these facts,”
says Darwin, “with respect to music and impassioned speech, become
intelligible to a certain extent, if we may assume that musical tones
and rhythm were used by our half-human ancestors during the season of
courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited, not only by love,
but by the strong feelings of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph. From
the deeply-laid principle of inherited associations, musical tones,
in this case, would be likely to call up, vaguely and indefinitely,
the strong emotions of a long-past age. Thus, in the Chinese annals
it is said, ‘Music’ (and this is Chinese music, by the way) ‘has the
power of making heaven descend upon earth’; and, again, as Herbert
Spencer remarks, ‘Music arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not
conceived the possibility, and do not know the meaning’; or, as Richter
says, ‘tells us of things we have not seen and shall not see.’” I have
little doubt myself that the feelings to which we owe our famous ode,
and those which were aroused by music in the breast of Jean Paul and
the Chinese annalist, were all much of the same kind, and due to the
same fundamental cause. We may, indeed, say with Wordsworth that the
soul “cometh from afar,” but what world is more afar than that of long
past time, which we may, yet, dimly carry about with us in our own
ancestral memories?
There is, I believe, no falser view than that which looks upon the
poet as a teacher, if we mean by this that he leads along the path of
growing knowledge; that he, for instance, and not Newton, gets first
at the law of gravitation, and so forth. If he ever does, it is by a
chance combination, merely, and not as a poet that he achieves this;
but, as a rule, poets only catch up the ideas of the age and present
them grandly and attractively.
“A monstrous eft was, of old, the Lord and Master of Earth,” &c.
Yet this very ode of Wordsworth “on intimations of immortality,” has
been quoted by Sir Oliver Lodge in his Presidential Address to the
Society for Psychical Research,[2] as though it were evidential. I
cannot understand this. Surely a feeling that a thing is, is not, in
itself, evidence that it is--and, if not, how does the beauty and
strength of the language which states the conviction, make it such? In
this famous poem there is no jot of argument, so that the case, after
reading it, stands exactly the same as it did before. No more has been
said now, either for or against, than if any plain body had expressed
the same ideas in his or her own way. For these mysterious sensations
are not confined to poets or great people. They are a common heritage,
but attract outside attention only when they find exalted utterance.
_Suum cuique_ therefore. The poet’s aptitude is to feel and express;
not, as a rule, to discover.
Besides the grand sweeping rush of the wood-pigeons over the
plantation, which makes the air full of sound, there is some fluttering
of wings, as the birds get into the trees; but this is less than one
might expect. It is afterwards, when they fly--first one and then
another--from the tree they have at first settled in to some other one,
that they think will suit them better, that the real noise begins. Then
all silence and solitude vanishes out of the lonely plantation, and
it becomes full of bustle, liveliness, and commotion. The speed and
impetus of the first downward flight has carried the birds smoothly on
to the branches, but now, flying under them, amongst the tree trunks,
they move heavily, make a great clattering of wings in getting up to
the selected bough, and often give a loud final clap with them, as they
perch upon it.
Wood-pigeons are in greater numbers in this part of Suffolk than one
might suppose would be the case, in a country for the most part so
open. However, even a small plantation will accommodate a great many.
I remember one cold afternoon in December going into one of young
oaks and beeches, skirting a grove of gloomy pines, where the rooks
come nightly to roost. My entry disturbed a multitude of the birds in
question, but after sitting, for some time, silently, under a tree
of the dividing row, they returned “in numbers numberless,” almost
rivalling the rooks themselves. Some trees seemed favourites, and,
from these, clouds of them would, sometimes, fly suddenly off, as if
they had become overcrowded. There was a constantly recurring clatter
and swish of wings, and then all at once the great bulk of the birds,
as it seemed to me, rose with such a clapping as Garrick or Mrs.
Siddons might have dreamed of, and departed--quantities of them, at
least--in impetuous, arrowy flight. I should have said, now, that the
greater number were gone, though the plantation still seemed fairly
peopled. Towards four, however, it became so cold that I had to move,
and _all_ the pigeons flew out of all the trees--a revelation as to
their real numbers, quite a wonderful thing to see. Some of the trees,
as the birds left them, just in the moment when they were going, but
still there, were neither oaks nor beeches--nor ashes, elms, poplars,
firs, sycamores, or any other known kind for the matter of that--but
_pigeon_-trees, that and nothing else.
For wrens, tits, and golden-crested wrens these fir plantations are as
paradises all the year round. The first-named little bird may often be
seen creeping about amongst the small holes and tunnels at the roots
of trees--especially overturned trees--going down into one and coming
out at another, as though it were a mouse. It is very pretty to see
it peep and creep and disappear, and then demurely appear again. Often
it will be underground for quite a little while--long enough to make
one wonder, sometimes, if anything has happened to it--but nothing
ever has. As soon as it has explored one labyrinth, it utters its
little chirruppy, chirpy, chattery note, and flits, a brown little
shadow, to another, into the first dark root-cavern of which it, once
more, disappears. House-hunting, it looks like--for the coming spring
quarter, to take from Lady Day, it being February now--but it is too
early for the bird to be really thinking of a nest, and no doubt
the finding of insects is its sole object. The golden-crested wrens
are more aerial in their search for food. They pass from fir-top to
fir-top, flitting swiftly about amongst the tufts of needles, owing to
which, and their small size, it is difficult to follow their movements
accurately. The pine-needles seem very attractive to them. I have often
searched these for insects, but never with much success, and I think,
myself, that they feed principally upon the tiny buds which begin to
appear upon them, very early in the year. In winter they may often be
seen about the trunks of the trees, and I remember, once, jotting down
a query as to what they could get there on a cold frosty morning in
December, when a spider, falling on the note-book, answered it in a
quite satisfactory manner.
Many spiders hibernate under the rough outer bark of the Scotch fir,
often in a sort of webby cocoon, which they spin for themselves;
numbers of small pupæ, too, choose--or have chosen in their
pre-existences--the same situations, especially that of the cinnabar
moth, which is extremely common about here. Its luridly-coloured
caterpillar--banded with deep black and orange--swarms upon the common
flea-bane, which grows something like a scanty crop over much of the
sandy soil; and when about to pupate, as I have noticed with interest,
it ascends the trunk of the Scotch fir, and undergoes the change in
one of the numerous chinks in its flaky bark. I have seen numbers of
these caterpillars thus ascending and concealing themselves, but I do
not know from how great a distance they come to the trees. Probably
it is only from quite near, for the majority, to get to them, would
have to travel farther than can be supposed possible, and, moreover,
fir-trees in these parts date, as I said, only from some fifty years
back. Doubtless it is mere accident, but when one sees such numbers
crawling towards the trees, and ascending as soon as they reach them,
it looks as though they were acting under some special impulse, such
as that which urges birds to migrate, or sends the lemmings to perish
in the sea. These caterpillars, however, as I now bethink me, are
nauseous to birds. I have thrown them to fowls who appeared not to see
them, so that they offer, I suppose, an example of warning coloration.
If, however, the caterpillar is unpalatable, the chrysalis probably is
also, so that it would not be for these that the golden wren, or the
coal-tit, its frequent companion, searches the bark in the winter.
Coal-tits, too, feed much--_ne m’en parlez point_--on the delicate
little buds at the ends of the clusters of spruce-needles, but they,
likewise, pull at and examine the needles themselves, so may, perhaps,
find some minute insects at their bases. They eat the buds of the
larch, too, and, as said before, whatever they can get by prying and
probing about, on the trunks of all these firs--especially that of the
Scotch one, which they search, sometimes, very industriously. Whilst
thus engaged they say at intervals, “Woo-tee, woo-tee, woo-tee” (or
“Wee-tee,” a sound between the two), and sometimes “Tooey, tooey,
tooey-too; tooey, tooey, tooey-too.” They flit quickly from place
to place, and, both in this and their way of feeding generally, a
good deal resemble the little golden wrens. The latter, however, are
brisker, more fairy-like, and still more difficult to watch. Yet, do
not let me wrong the coal-tit--he moves most daintily. Every little hop
is a little flutter with the wings, a little flirt with the tail. His
little legs you hardly see. He has a little game--not hop, skip, and
jump, but hop, flirt, and flutter. His motion combines all three--in
what proportions, how or when varying, that no man knoweth. How,
exactly, he gets to any place that he would, you do not see, you cannot
tell--he is there, that you see, but the rest is doubtful. He does not
know, himself, I believe. “_Aber frag’ mich nür nicht wie_,” he might
say, with Heine, if you asked him about it.
But if there is such a mystery in the movements of the coal-tit, what
is to be said about those of the long-tailed one? Most unfair would
it be to omit him, now that the other has been mentioned. Nor will I.
Dear little birdikins! The naturalist must be _blasé_, indeed, who
could ever be tired of noting your ways, though he might well be weary
of following you about amongst the delicate larches, which are most
your fairy home and in which you look most fairy-like. Such a dance as
you lead him! For always you are passing on, making a hasting, running
examination of the twigs of the trees you flit through, searching
systematically, from one to another, in a sort of aerial forced-march,
which makes you--oh, birdikins!--most difficult to watch. Like other
tits, you--Oh, but hang the apostrophe; I can’t sustain it, so must
drop, again--and I think for ever--into the sober third person. Like
other tits, then, these little long-tailed ones are fond of hanging,
head downwards, on the under side of a bough or twig: but I am not
sure if I have seen other tits come down on a bough or twig in this
way--at any rate not to the same extent. Say that a blue or a great
tit, and a long-tailed one, are both on the same bough, together. The
two former will fly, or flutter--fly, to another, alight upon its upper
side, and get round to its under one, by a process that can be seen.
The long-tailed tit will jump and arrive on the under side, hanging
there head downwards. That, at least, is what it looks like, as if he
had turned himself on his back, in the air, before seizing hold of his
twig. Really there is a little swing down, after seizing it--like an
acrobat on a trapeze--but this is so quick that it eludes the eye. It
is by his legerdemain and illusion, and by his jumping, rather than
flying, from bough to bough, that the long-tailed tit is distinguished.
He often makes a good long jump--a real jump--without appearing to
aid himself with his wings at all. The note of these tits is a “Zee,
zee--zee, zee, zee, zee,” but it is not of such a sharp quality as the
“zee” or “tzee” of the blue tit. It is more pleasing--indeed, there is
something very pleasing about it. What is there, in fact, that is not
pleasing about this little bird?
But I have something more to say upon the subject of the coal-tit’s
diet; for he eats, I believe, the seeds of the fir-cones, and manages
not only to pick them out of these, but to pick the cone itself to
pieces in so doing--a wonderful feat, surely, when one thinks how large
and hard the cone is, and how small the bird. It is not on the tree
that I have seen these tits feeding in this manner, but on the ground,
and the question, for me, is whether the cones that lay everywhere
about had been detached and then reduced, sometimes, almost to shreds,
by them or by squirrels. At first I unhesitatingly put it down to the
latter, but I soon noticed that in these particular firs--not part
of a plantation but skirting the road, as is common here--a squirrel
was never to be seen. Neither were coal-tits numerous, but still a
pair or two seemed to live here, and were often engaged with the
cones. Half-a-dozen of these I took home to examine at leisure. Two,
I found, had been only just commenced on, and the punctures upon them
were certainly such as might have been made by the beak of a small
bird, suggesting that the tit had here begun the process of picking
the cone to pieces, before any squirrel had touched it. One of the
outer four-sided scales had been removed, and as no cut or excoriation
was visible upon the surface thus exposed, this, again, looked
more as if the scale aforesaid had been seized with a pincers--the
bird’s beak--and torn off, than as though it had been cut away with
a chisel--the squirrel’s teeth--for, in this latter case, the plate
beneath would, in all probability, have been cut into, too, at some
point, and not left in its natural smooth state. Another two of these
cones consisted of the bases only, and from their appearance and the
debris around them, seemed to have been pecked and torn, rather than
gnawed to pieces. In five out of the six, the extreme base--that part
from the centre of which the stalk springs--had been left untouched.
In the sixth, however, this had been attacked, and presented a rough,
hacked, punctured appearance, the stalk itself--represented by just a
point--having apparently been pecked through, suggesting strongly that
the tits had commenced work while the cone hung on the tree, and had
severed it in this way. All round the basal circle the scales had been
stripped off, and the exposed surface was smooth and unexcoriated--as
in the other instance--except where a portion of it seemed to have
been torn, not cut, away. Two seed-cavities were exposed and empty. It
certainly looked as though these cones had been hacked and pulled to
pieces by the tits, and not gnawed by squirrels, so as this agreed with
the absence of the latter, and what I had actually seen the bird doing,
I came to the conclusion that they had been. Perhaps there is nothing
very wonderful in it after all, but, looking at a fir-cone, I should
have thought it clean beyond the strength of a coal-tit to tear it to
pieces. But what, now, is the origin of the name “coal-tit,” which
seems to have no particular meaning? Is it a corruption of “cone-tit,”
which, if the bird really feeds on the seeds of the fir, and procures
them in this manner, would have one? German _Kohlmeise_, however, is
rather against this hypothesis.
[Illustration: YOUNG NIGHTJARS]