MOVEMENTS OF LONDON BIRDS
Migration as seen in London--Swallows in the parks--Fieldfares--A flock
of wild geese--Autumn movements of resident species--Wood-pigeons--A
curious habit--Dabchicks and moorhens--Crows and rooks--The Palace
daws--Starlings--Robins--A Tower robin and the Tower sparrows--Passage
birds in the parks--Small birds wintering in London--Influx of birds
during severe frosts--Occasional visitors--The black-headed gull--A
winter scene in St. James's Park.
The seasonal movements of the strict migrants are little noticed in
London; there are few such species that visit, fewer still that remain
any time with us. And when they come we scarcely see them: they are not
like the residents, reacted on and modified by their surroundings, made
tame, ready to feed from our hands, to thrust themselves at all times
upon our attention. Nevertheless we do occasionally see something of
these shyer wilder ones, the strangers and passengers; and in London,
as in the rural districts, it is the autumnal not the vernal migration
which impresses the mind. Birds are seldom seen arriving in spring.
Walking to-day in some park or garden, we hear the first willow-wren's
delicate tender warble among the fresh April foliage. It was not heard
yesterday, but the small modest-coloured singer may have been there
nevertheless, hidden and silent among the evergreens. The birds that
appear in the autumn are plainly travellers that have come from some
distant place, and have yet far to go. Wheatears may be seen if looked
for in August on Hampstead Heath, and occasionally a few other large
open spaces in or near London. In September and October swallows and
martins put in an appearance, and although they refuse to make their
summer home in inner London, they often come in considerable numbers
and remain for many days, even for weeks, in the parks in autumn.
It has been conjectured that the paucity of winged insect life in London
is the cause of the departure of swallows and house-martins as breeding
species. Yet in the autumn of 1896, from September to the middle of
October, hundreds of these birds lived in the central and many other
parks in London, and doubtless they found a sufficiency of food in
spite of the cold east winds which prevailed at that time.
Among the winter visitors to the outskirts of the metropolis, the
fieldfare is the most abundant as well as the most attractive. During
the winters of 1895-6 and 1896-7 I saw them on numberless occasions
at Wimbledon, Richmond, Hampstead Heath, Bostell Woods, Hackney Marsh,
Wanstead, Dulwich, Brockwell Park, Streatham, and other open spaces and
woods round London. In the gardens of the outer suburbs there is always
a great profusion of winter berries, and the felts seen in these places
are probably regular visitors. Certainly they are tamer than fieldfares
are apt to be in the country, but they seldom penetrate far into the
brick-and-mortar wilderness. I have seen a few in Kensington Gardens,
and in November, 1896, a few fieldfares alighted on a tree at the Tower
of London. Stranger still, in February 1897 a flock of wild geese was
observed flying over the Tower: the birds went down the river flying
low, as it was noticed that when they passed over the Tower Bridge they
were not higher than the pinnacles of the two big towers.
[Illustration: FIELDFARES AT THE TOWER]
The birds that are strange to London eyes are very nearly all seen in
the autumn, from September to November. At this mutable season a person
who elects to spend his nights on the roof, with rugs and an umbrella
to keep out cold and wet, may be rewarded by hearing far-off shrill
delicate noises of straggling sandpipers or other shore birds on
passage, or the mysterious cry of the lapwing, 'wailing his way from
cloud to cloud.'
All these rare sights and sounds are for the very patient watchers
and listeners; nevertheless they are the only 'authentic tidings' the
Londoner receives of that great and wonderful wave of life which travels
southward over half the globe in advance of winter. This annual exodus
and sublime flight to distant delectable regions beyond the sea is,
however, only taken part in by some of the feathered people; meanwhile
the others that remain to brave the cold and scarcity are also seen to
be infected with a restless spirit and desire of change. The starling,
missel-thrush, larks and pipits, and other kinds, alter their way of
life, uniting in flocks and becoming wanderers over the face of the
country. Finches, too, go a-gypsying: the more sedentary species leave
their breeding-haunts for suitable winter quarters; and everywhere there
is a great movement, a changing of places, packing and scattering, a
hurrying to and fro all over the land.
The London birds are no exception, although their autumnal movements
have hitherto attracted little attention. These movements are becoming
more noticeable, owing to changes going on in the character of the
metropolitan bird population. The sparrow, as we have seen, does not
leave home, but recently there has been a great increase in the more
vagrant species, the starling and wood-pigeon especially. During the
last few years the wood-pigeon has been growing somewhat more domestic,
and less inclined to leave town than formerly, but from time to time the
old wandering instinct reasserts itself, and it was observed that during
the autumn of 1896 a majority of the birds left London. At Lincoln's Inn
Fields there were thirteen birds down to the end of September, then all
but one disappeared. This solitary stayer-at-home had been sprung upon
and injured by a cat some time before the day of departure.
Last year, 1897, the autumnal exodus was even greater. Thus, on October
25 I walked the whole length of the three central parks, and saw no
pigeons except one pair of young birds not long out of the nest, in Hyde
Park, and one parent bird feeding them. The other parent had probably
gone away to the country, leaving his mate to rear this very late brood
as best she could. Doubtless many of these wanderers from the metropolis
get killed in the country, but in December and January the survivors
return to the safety of the parks, and to a monotonous diet of stale
bread.
It is probable that with the change of temperature in September and
October the London wood-pigeons, like so many birds, are seized by a
restless and roving spirit; but I am inclined to believe that the taste
of wild nuts and fruits, which they get in the parks at that season,
is one cause of their going away. They do not get much of this natural
food; they first strip the oaks of their acorns almost before they are
quite ripe, depriving the London urchins of their little harvest, and
then attack the haws and holly-berries; and when this small supply has
been exhausted the birds go further afield in search of more.
[Illustration: WOOD-PIGEON FEEDING ON HAWS]
On the evening of August 26, 1897, I saw a number of wood-pigeons
feeding on the haws in a manner quite new in my experience. There
were twelve or fourteen birds on a good-sized thorn-tree growing in
Buckingham Palace grounds; but the berries on this tree grew at the
tips of long slender branches and could not have been reached by the
birds in the ordinary way. The pigeons would settle on a branch and
then begin moving cautiously towards the points, the branch bending
beneath the weight more and more until the bird, unable to keep any
longer _on_ the branch, would suddenly turn over and remain hanging head
down, suspended by its clinging feet. In this position, by stretching
its neck it would be able to reach the berries, which it would then
leisurely devour. As many as four or five birds were seen at one time
hanging in this way, appearing with wings half-open like dead or wounded
birds tied by their feet to the branchlets, from which they were
suspended. Since witnessing this curious scene I have been told by Mr.
Coppin, the superintendent at Battersea Park, that he has seen the
wood-pigeons at that place acting in the same way. It is probably a
habit of the birds which has hitherto escaped notice.
* * * * *
The dabchicks leave London in the autumn and return in spring: they may
be looked for in the ornamental waters as early as the third week in
March. The moorhens formerly disappeared from London in winter; they
are now residents throughout the year in a few of the parks where there
is shelter, and during severe frosts they feed at the same table with
the ornamental water-fowl. From all the smaller lakes which they have
recently colonised they vanish in cold weather. In autumn they wander
about a good deal by night; any small piece of water will attract them,
and their cries will be heard during the dark hours; before it is light
they will be gone.
Crows and rooks are most often seen in London during the winter months.
Many rooks have their winter roosting-place in Richmond Park, and small
bands of these birds visit the central parks and other open spaces. On
the morning of February 3, 1897, about fifty rooks visited Kensington
Gardens and fed for some hours on the strip of grassed land adjoining
the palace. The whole jackdaw colony, numbering twenty-four birds, fed
with them, and when, about twelve o'clock, the visitors rose up and
flew away, the daws, after seeing them off, returned in a body to the
tree-tops near the palace, and for the rest of the day continued in an
excited state. From time to time they would rush up with a loud clamour,
then return to the tree-tops, where they would sit close together and
silent as if expecting something, and at intervals of a minute or two a
simultaneous cry would burst from them.
I have observed that on winter evenings these daws fly away from the
gardens in a north-westerly direction: where their winter roosting-place
is I have not discovered.
The starling is the most interesting London bird in his autumn movements.
It is only at the end of July, when they are gathered in large bodies,
that some idea can be formed of their numbers. Flocks of a dozen to
forty or fifty birds may be seen in any park and green space any day
throughout the winter; these are the birds that winter with us, and are
but a small remnant of the entire number that breed in London. At the
end of June the starlings begin to congregate every evening at their
favourite roosting-places. Of these there are several, the most favoured
being the islands in the ornamental water at Regent's Park, the island
in the Serpentine, and at Buckingham Palace grounds and Battersea Park.
The last is the most important. Before sunset the birds are seen pouring
in, flock after flock, from all quarters, until the trees on the island
are black with their thousands, and the noise of their singing and
chattering is so great that a person standing on the edge of the lake
can hardly hear himself speak. These meeting places are evidently
growing in favour, and if the autumn of 1898 shows as great an increase
as those of 1896 and 1897 over previous years, London will have as
compensation for its lost rookeries some very fine clouds of starlings.
At the beginning of October most of the birds go away to spend the
winter in the country, or possibly abroad. In February and March they
begin to reappear in small flocks, and gradually scatter over the whole
area of the metropolis, each pair going back to its old nesting-hole.
The annual scattering of robins at the end of summer, when, after the
moult, the old birds attack and drive away the young, has been described
in the last chapter. This habit of the bird alone would cause a good
deal of moving about of the London robins each year, but it is also a
very general belief of ornithologists that at this season there is a
large migratory movement of young robins throughout the country. At all
events, it is a fact that in August and September robins go about in
London a good deal, and frequently appear in the most unlikely places.
Some of these are no doubt birds of the year hatched in London or the
suburbs, and others may be migrating robins passing through.
At the Tower of London robins occasionally appear in autumn, but soon go
away. The last one that came settled down and was a great favourite with
the people there for about two months, being very friendly, coming to
window-sills for crumbs, and singing every day very beautifully. Then
one day he was seen in the General's garden wildly dashing about, hotly
pursued by seven or eight sparrows, and as he was never seen again it
was conjectured that the sparrows had succeeded in killing him. The
robin is a high-spirited creature, braver than most birds, and a fair
fighter, but against such a gang of feathered murderous ruffians, bent
on his destruction, he would stand no chance.
The Tower sparrows, it may be added, appear to be about the worst
specimens of their class in London. They are always at war with the
pigeons and starlings, and would gladly drive them out if they could.
It is a common thing for some foreign bird to escape from its cage on
board ship and to take refuge in the trees and gardens of the Tower,
but woe to the escaped captive and stranger in a strange land who seeks
safety in such a place! Immediately on his arrival the sparrows are all
up against him, not to 'heave half a brick at him,' since they are not
made that way, but to hunt him from place to place until they have
driven him, weak with fatigue and terror, into a corner where they can
finish him with their bludgeon beaks.
This violence towards strangers of the Tower sparrow is not to be
wondered at, since this unpleasant disposition or habit is common to
many species. The prophet Jeremiah had observed it when he said, 'Mine
heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are
against her.' To the Tower sparrows every feathered stranger is
conspicuously speckled, and they are against her. The wonder is that
they should keep up their perpetual little teasing warfare against the
pigeons and starlings, their neighbours from time immemorial. One would
have imagined that so intelligent and practical a bird as the sparrow,
after vainly trying for several centuries to drive out his fellow
tenants, would have made peace with them and found some more profitable
outlet for his superabundant energies. Possibly the introduction of a
few feathered policemen--owls, or magpies, or sparrow hawks--would have
the effect of making him a less quarrelsome neighbour.
* * * * *
In autumn and in spring a variety of summer visitants, mostly warblers,
pass through London, delaying a little in its green spaces. In September
we are hardly cognisant of these small strangers within our gates, all
but one or two being silent at that season. In April and May, in
many of the parks, we may hear the chiffchaff, willow-wren, blackcap,
sedge-warbler, the whitethroat, occasionally the cuckoo, and a few other
rarer species, but they sing little, and soon leave us to seek better
breeding-sites than the inner parks offer.
While some of our birds, as we have seen, forsake us at the approach of
cold weather, some for a short period, others to remain away until the
following spring, a small contrary movement of birds into London is
going on. These winterers with us come not in battalions and are little
remarked. They are to be found, a few here and a few there, all over
London, wherever there are trees and bushes, but less in the public
parks than in private grounds, cemeteries, and other quiet spots. Thus,
during the last two exceptionally mild winters a few skylarks have lived
contentedly in the comparatively small green area at Lambeth Palace.
Nunhead Cemetery is a favourite winter resort of a number of small
birds--starlings, chaffinches, and greenfinches, and a few of other
species. Chaffinches are found in winter in several of the open spaces
where they do not breed, and among other species to be found wintering
in the quiet green spots in small numbers are linnets, goldfinches,
pipits, and the pied wagtail.
In exceptionally severe winters birds come into London in considerable
numbers--rooks, starlings, larks, blackbirds and thrushes, finches, and
other small species--and they then visit not only the parks but all the
squares and private gardens. During the big frost of 1890-1 skylarks
were seen every day searching for food on the Thames Embankment. These
strangers all vanish from London on the break-up of the frost.
During the late autumn and winter months a few large birds occasionally
appear--heron, mallard, widgeon, teal, &c. As a rule they come and
go during the dark hours. The sight of water and the cries of the
ornamental water-fowl attract them. They are mostly irregular visitors,
and cannot very well be included in the list of London birds.
The case of the black-headed gull is different, as this species may now
be classed with the regular visitors, and not merely to the outlying
spaces, like the fieldfare, but to the central parks of the metropolis,
where, like the wood-pigeon, he looks to man for food.
The black-headed gull has always been a winter visitor in small numbers
to the lower reaches of the Thames, coming up the river as far as London
Bridge. In severe winters more birds come; thus, in the winter of 1887-8
they appeared in great numbers, and ranged as high up as Putney. The
late Mr. Tristram-Valentine, in describing this visitation, wrote:
'It is seldom, indeed, that these birds appeared in such numbers in
the Thames above London Bridge as they have done lately, and their
appearance has, from its rarity, caused a corresponding excitement
among Londoners, as is proved by the numbers of people that have crowded
the bridges and embankments to watch their movements. To a considerable
portion of these, no doubt, the marvellous flight and power of wing of
the gull came as an absolute revelation.'
Gulls came up the river in still greater force during the exceptionally
long and severe frost of 1892-3. That was a memorable season in the
history of the London gulls. Then, for the last time, gulls were shot
on the river between the bridges, and this pastime put a stop to by
the police magistrates, who fined the sportsmen for the offence of
discharging firearms to the public danger. And then for the first time,
so far as I know, the custom of regularly feeding the gulls in London
had its beginning. Every day for a period of three to four weeks
hundreds of working men and boys would take advantage of the free hour
at dinner time to visit the bridges and embankments, and give the scraps
left from their meal to the birds. The sight of this midday crowd
hurrying down to the waterside with welcome in their faces and food in
their hands must have come 'as an absolute revelation' to the gulls.
During the memorable frost of 1894-5 the birds again appeared in immense
numbers, and would doubtless have soon left us, or else perished of cold
and hunger on the snow-covered hummocks of ice which filled the Thames
and gave it so arctic an aspect, but for the quantities of food cast to
them every day. As in previous years when gulls have visited the Thames
in considerable numbers, many of the birds found their way into the
parks, and were especially numerous in St. James's Park, where they
formed the habit of feeding with the ornamental water-fowl.
We have since experienced three exceptionally mild winters, so that the
gulls were not driven by want to invade us; but they have come to us
nevertheless, not having forgotten the generous hospitality London
extended to them in the frost. St. James's Park has now become the
favourite wintering place of a considerable number of birds, and their
habit is to spend the day on the lake, feeding on the broken bread and
scraps of meat thrown to them from the bridge, and leaving about sunset
to spend the night on the river. In the autumn of 1896, three or four
days after the gulls began to appear on the Thames, a body of two or
three hundred of these birds settled down in the park water, and fed
there every day and all day long until the following spring--March 1897.
A favourite pastime of mine during the winter months was to feed these
park gulls with sprats, which were plentiful and could be bought
anywhere for one penny a pound, or in quantities for about a farthing
the pound. Gulls cannot live by bread alone; it is true that even in
London they do not, like the blubber-eating Greenlander, spew it out of
their mouths, for they will eat almost anything, but it is not partaken
of with zest, and even with a crop-full they do not feel that they
have dined. However much bread they had had, no sooner would they see
the silvery gleam of a little tossed-up sprat than there would be a
universal scream of excitement, a rush from all sides, and the whole
white vociferous crowd would be gathered before me, almost brushing my
face with their wings, sweeping round and round, joyfully feasting on
the little fishes, cast to them in showers, to be deftly caught before
they touched the water.
[Illustration: FEEDING THE GULLS IN ST. JAMES'S PARK]
Some of the birds, bolder or more intelligent than their fellows,
would actually take the sprats from the hand.
A very few days before writing this chapter end, on January 30, 1898,
I passed by the water and saw the gulls there, where indeed they have
spent most of the daylight hours since the first week in October. It was
a rough wild morning; the hurrying masses of dark cloud cast a gloom
below that was like twilight; and though there was no mist the trees and
buildings surrounding the park appeared vague and distant. The water,
too, looked strange in its intense blackness, which was not hidden by
the silver-grey light on the surface, for the surface was everywhere
rent and broken by the wind, showing the blackness beneath. Some of the
gulls--about 150 I thought--were on the water together in a close flock,
tailing off to a point, all with their red beaks pointing one way to the
gale. Seeing them thus, sitting high as their manner is, tossed up and
down with the tumbling water, yet every bird keeping his place in the
company, their whiteness and buoyancy in that dark setting was quite
wonderful. It was a picture of black winter and beautiful wild bird life
which would have had a rare attraction even in the desert places of the
earth; in London it could not be witnessed without feelings of surprise
and gratitude.
We see in this punctual return of the gulls, bringing their young with
them, that a new habit has been acquired, a tradition formed, which has
given to London a new and exceedingly beautiful ornament, of more value
than many works of art.