Charles Dixon

“ So likewise has the Gray Wagtail oft been our sole bird companion on many a Highland water, both on the mainland and in Skye. We never tire of watching its sylph-like actions, the dainty way it poises on the stones or flits along before us stage after stage in undulating flight uttering its cheery chiz zit as it goes, or of admiring the exquisite blending of its showy yet delicately coloured plumage. ”

“ They love the swampy portions of the moors—the spacious hollows between the hills, where the wet ground is clothed with a dense growth of rushes, cotton-grass, and sphagnum, amongst which the heath and ling in scattered patches mark the drier portions of the ground. At the first alarm the ever-watchful Plovers rise one after the other from all parts of the waste, and then begins a chorus of flute-like whistling cries, bird after bird taking up the chorus and alarming all other and less demonstrative species within hearing. ”

“ There is one charm about woodlands that scarcely any other description of scenery can claim constantly, and that is, summer and winter alike birds are plentiful amongst them. The moors and the [133] sea-crags, the shore and the stream, the marsh and the heath, have their times of avine abundance, in summer or in winter, and then they are more or less deserted, but the woods and shrubberies, the coppices and timbered parks, are a haunt in summer and a refuge in winter of a vast and varied bird population as well as an aviary of almost perennial song! ”

“ Soon after their arrival, but never, so far as we have observed, before the flocks or travelling parties have disbanded, the cock birds regain their vernal music characteristic of the love season. With the resumption of song the bird loses a good deal of its wariness, a fact we may notice in not a few other species. He will sit and warble on the big boulders of granite or millstone grit, or when perched on the top of a rough wall or some bending spray of ling or gorse, just as sweetly as when sitting in the higher branches of some birch or mountain-ash. ”

“ A single visit is bewildering, renewed acquaintance impresses their wonders upon us and enables us fully to realize the grandeur of the scene and more completely to enjoy the avine wonders of the place. Apart from their bird-life, there is a strong human interest clinging to them, for Grace Darling casts a halo of romance around them by her daring deed long years ago, and which is still a stock subject for conversation up and down the coast. These rocky islands lying a few miles off the shore are nowadays almost a perfect sanctuary for sea-birds. ”

“ Osprey took place nearly twenty years ago in Ross-shire, at the head of Loch Carron. We had been kept rain-bound for a couple of days in the hotel at Strome Ferry, and a most miserable and depressing time we had of it, the surrounding hills hidden by clouds and the surface of the loch churned into foam by the incessant downpour. The second evening the weather cleared, and we started off for a long ramble along the loch-side; the sun shone out brilliantly, and began to dispel the caps of clouds hanging on the hills. ”

“ An inland gullery always seems to strike us as a trifle incongruous, for we are always apt to associate a Gull with the sea; yet here, miles away from the salt water, often surrounded by rural scenes, are Gulls in thousands as happy and contented as though they had never been near a coast in their lives. When the young are able to fly, however, the instinct of the sea apparently returns to them, and back they go to the salt water to wander far and wide, and lead a life of errantry until love brings them inland again in the following spring. ”

“ Indeed, we know of no other place on the entire coast-line of the British Islands where the fascinating phenomenon of migration can be studied to better advantage. Along this coast, at intervals during the autumn, birds literally pour in from across the North Sea, or are tempted to loiter upon it when following the entire line of our eastern sea-board to winter quarters far to the south of the British archipelago. Few wilder districts can be imagined, few more monotonous, and even dreary, than the vast expanses of mud and sand that fringe the Wash. ”

“ The birds seem much attached to certain spots, and, like the Tree Pipit, seldom wander far from their nesting-grounds throughout the breeding season. Unlike the Sky-lark, which very exceptionally indeed perches upon a bush or a tree, the Wood-lark may be constantly seen high up the branches. Indeed, like the Tree Pipit, the cock bird selects some favourite branch, and here early and late he sits, and ever and anon flies out and upwards to warble his rich and joyous song. There are those who maintain that the song of the Wood-lark is even superior to that of the Sky-lark. ”

“ The steel-blue Swallows and Martins come from the adjoining meadows and park to dart to and fro with shrill twitter, and thread their way beneath the drooping branches of the chestnuts gaily ornamented with their noble spikes of fair yet evil-smelling bloom, like miniature candelabra. The Herons all day long fly up and down from their nests in the tree-tops to and from the shallows, where the roach are an easy prey. How stately the big gray birds look standing so solemn in the shallows! ”

“ The bird, like the bat and the Owl, sleeps during the daytime, either crouched flat upon the ground under the bracken or underwood, or seated lengthwise on some broad flat branch of a tree where dense foliage gives the shade and gloom it seeks, and where its beautifully mottled and vermiculated plumage harmonizes most closely with surrounding tints. ”

“ The cock bird warbles most frequently whilst sitting on some water-encircled stone or rock, but we have known him to perch and sing in the alder-trees growing by the water-side. We always consider him to be in finest voice during March and April—a habit fully in keeping with his robust temperament, and one which instantly puts us in mind of a louder and sweeter singer, the Missel-thrush. The Dipper is the one constant avine dweller on the upland streams, consequently we must in fairness regard him as the most characteristic bird of these localities. ”

“ A scrappy little nest it is, dry grass and roots and such-like litter thrown carelessly together, and lined with hair or more rarely a few feathers; artless, yet possessing a rustic beauty if wanting that elaborate finish of more painstaking nest-builders. The five or six eggs are as unassuming as the nest that holds them, grayish-white freckled with brown, and perhaps with here and there a scratch of darker hue. The bird is an early breeder, making its nest in April, although we have remarked that in Scotland it is a little later in its operations. ”

“ Birds of many species compose these lost and bewildered flocks. Adversity makes strange companions, as the old saying has it, and never perhaps was it better illustrated than by a crowd of birds at the lantern of a lighthouse. Significantly enough, the return passage in spring is invariably undertaken by numbers scarcely a tithe as great as in autumn—the bulk of the little pilgrims having met their fate either on passage or during the intervening winter. ”

“ But this is in summer mostly; in winter he becomes far more familiar, and during that season comes much nearer to the busy haunts of men. We have often seen Gray Wagtails in the bed of the grimy Don and Sheaf in the very heart of smoky Sheffield during mid-winter; and we know the bird as a winter resident about all the streams and sluices and dams in the series of Endcliffe Woods. The bird seems, however, closely attached to the stream in its upland solitudes, and at the first sign of spring goes back to favourite haunts among the moorlands and hills. ”

“ Bird-life in May perhaps reaches the zenith of its activity. It is a month of song and a month of love, during which the nests of nearly all our commoner birds may be found. It also marks the arrival of [288] the last of our summer migrants—the Swift, the Wood Wren, the Flycatcher, the Nightjar, and the Turtle Dove especially. Merlins, Plovers, Twites, and Ring-ouzels are nesting on the moors; Sparrow-hawks and Kestrels in the woods; where also Pheasant, Jay, and Magpie are deep in family cares. ”

“ These larger and heavier-looking birds are equally at home amongst the long slender twigs, hanging head downwards like a Tit or a Goldcrest, and swaying to and fro like animated pendulums, all the time keeping up a chorus of twittering notes. Possibly the Brambling is a life-paired species, for we have often witnessed various little marks of affection between the sexes during winter. ”

“ There are few things more interesting to the lover of bird-life than the comparison of ornithological phenomena as they are presented in various localities, separated, it may be, by but few degrees of latitude. Not only does this apply to the species themselves—for even in our own islands the geographical distribution of birds conforms a good deal to latitude,—but to their migrational movements, their resumption of voice, their seasons of reproduction, their gatherings and movements generally, and finally to not a few habits that appear to be confined within narrow territorial limits. ”

“ The Gray Wagtail visits these upland streams for the purpose of rearing its young. Not every wanderer by the water-side is fortunate enough to get a peep at this bird’s domestic arrangements. It has, fortunately perhaps, a happy way of concealing its nest under some large stone or overhanging rock, or in a quiet nook, not necessarily in a secluded spot, but often close by the wayside, where the very audacity of the selection proves a source of safety. ”

“ Where the horsetail reeds grow up in a dense forest of dark-green from out the shallow parts of the mill-dam, the Moorhen is often common enough, and rears its young from a floating nest some distance from the bank where only boats can reach it. ”

“ In the northern shires, on the other hand, the story of migration is unfolded every season in all its wondrous grandeur, and along our eastern sea-board, especially in autumn, birds in uncounted hosts pass to and fro in a way more impressive than any words can tell. ”

“ The four handsome pear-shaped eggs—pale buff, splashed and spotted with rich brown and gray—in their scanty nest, usually made beneath the shelter of a heath tuft or bunch of grass, require no special protection from the parent, for they harmonize so closely in tint with surrounding objects that discovery is difficult in the extreme, even when we know the exact location of their resting-place. Curiously enough the Sandpiper is not aquatic in its habits. It never swims nor dives save when wounded, but obtains its food whilst tripping round the muddy and sandy portions of the water’s edge. ”

“ This little bird, we know, breeds upon the Scandinavian fells, and yet it will return winter after winter to the very centre of England to some square yard of bog on a South Yorkshire farm, coming and going so quietly that no man may say exactly [182] when it arrives or departs, and living here for months in this warm corner in the fields, in solitary state, a recluse waxing fat in its solitude. Then winter comes round once more. All the summer birds of farm and garden are far beyond the seas; new birds are here from other and sterner lands. ”

“ And yet the Corncrake is not quite such a skulking bird as some would make him. When all is quiet he not unfrequently wanders out of the hay-meadow through the hedge into the barer pasture beyond, sometimes running a score of yards into the open field ”

“ Then perhaps the warbling cry of the Sky-lark would sound from the still dusky sky—the note of tired pilgrims that had been winging their way across the wild sea whilst men slept, and music which never failed to inspire a feeling of sympathy in us. Poor tired and hungry little birds—we always wished them well. Sometimes we should find the bushes and even the long grass on the banks crowded with tired Goldcrests ”

“ Every now and then two birds will each seize the other in its powerful bill and go tumbling over the cliffs together, not to separate until they have perhaps fallen a hundred feet or so, when they will part, and soon lose their identity among the drifting crowd that circles about the face of the cliff in never-ending activity. All the time of our stay birds are coming and going, dropping lightly on to the land or soaring upwards into the air; whilst the sea below is well sprinkled with birds, and some distance down the Firth many others may be seen busily engaged in fishing. ”

“ Another familiar bird of the farm is the Starling—a species that does not reveal its beauty unless examined minutely. There are few birds in this country more gorgeously arrayed with metallic sheen than a fine old cock Starling in the full flush and vigour of spring plumage. His lemon-yellow bill at this season also increases the effect. As harmless as it is useful, it keeps close company with the Rooks, although it shows little inclination to follow those birds on to the arable land; it loves the grass fields and manure heaps, being somewhat of an unclean feeder. ”