Oliver Vernon Aplin

“ At one spot is a grand perpendicular cliff-face, formed by a landslip, of nearly horizontal strata. It is somewhat irregular of outline, and slopes up from the east until it attains its height, and then merges into the long grassy gorse-dotted slope of the headland which has not slipped. At the foot of the cliff the mass of fallen rock and earth, which fell long ago, forms a steep green gorsy slope. The cliff-face is much weather-stained, grey-green in places with long hanging lichen, or brilliantly green with ivy, and brightened with a few patches of pink thrift and white sea-campion. ”

“ As you approach the island you pass through great numbers scattered over the sea, and they sit in masses on the land; the turf in places is riddled with their holes, and the air is full of birds coming and going. ”

“ Above the valley stretches a rolling, rather bleak arable country, with some resemblance to parts of the Berkshire downs, save that it is ruled here and there with long lines of roadside poplars and pines. Villages nestling among orchards and paddocks are frequent, and the country waved with rye and corn, and was sweet with sainfoin and trefoil. Above Hastière the heights sink away, and the valley spreads out into rich wide meadows, corn fields and orchards, varied by some wooded rising ground. ”

“ At Hermeton-sur-Meuse, a farm—with its odoriferous cowhouses and yard deep in manure, which it loves so well—had its pair, for each pair seems to have its allotted location, and does not, in the country at least, often admit of very near neighbours. When dwelling in a town amid a waste of steep roofs of all sizes and pitched at all angles, they are rather less exclusive. Stately château, vile modern villa, and humble white-walled cottage are alike favoured by this most domestic bird. It dearly loves one of those typical Ardenne villages like Houyet ”

“ It seemed strange at first, in a climate so mild and soft that myrtles, hydrangeas, fuchsias, and large bushes of escallonia flourish in the cottage gardens, to be told that wheat is hardly worth growing; but in Lleyn almost every wind comes off the sea, and it must be rarely that it enjoys a summer so hot and dry as that of 1899, when haymaking was in full swing at Aberdaron at the end of June. ”

“ It is a curious thing that during the late autumn and winter the Missel Thrush can hardly be called a gregarious bird in England, and that we do not see flocks after early autumn. In winter the Missel Thrush is seen singly, or, at the most, three or four together, until early spring when it pairs. I think this bird was more common here when I was a boy, judging from recollections of nests found in apple orchards and the fork of forest trees—an ash for choice; judging also from the birds shot with Fieldfares in hard weather in the thorn and other berried trees. ”

“ The male occasionally, when flying from one spot to another, finishes its flight with wings thrown up and tail somewhat spread. Seen thus against a dark background it is a pretty object, the red tail being very conspicuous. Although more than one male was located within easy earshot of my bedroom window in Dinant, it was only in the very early hours of the day—before the dog-carts and trolleys and long, narrow country carts began their frightful rattle and din on the sharp-edged rough stones with which the streets are so vilely paved—that I could hear the song well. ”

“ Winding valleys leading from the main one penetrate the high-lying land, their sides thickly clothed with woods of oak, elm, ash, and hazel, with alder in the bottoms by the streams, and varied by birch, rowan, beam, and the lines of spruce firs where the roads cut through the woods. The wild and winding valley of the Lesse, with its rapid river now flowing under spreading branches at the foot of wooded slopes, dashing over boulders or washing the base of some cliff, like that on which the Château Walzin is perched ”

“ But when I stood close to hundreds of birds I did not hear a sound from them, until, as I approached within a few yards, they rose with a rattle and rush of wings, and filled the air like bees round a disturbed hive. A single bird will admit of an approach within two or three yards without moving, merely regarding you intently with its dark grey eye. On June 23rd the eggs (much discoloured with brown earth stains) , some of which lay within arm's reach, were hard sat, and some young were just hatched. ”

“ The Rabbits here (which are numerous and tame) are not at all afraid of the Puffins. As I sat at lunch close to a crowd of Puffins outside the burrows, I saw several young and old Rabbits come out and sit about among them. A dead Puffin, fresh and bleeding and half-eaten, had probably fallen a victim to an immature Great Black-backed Gull which was flying about, and a young Rabbit had doubtless shared the same fate. The Peregrine is now only an occasional visitor, but I have seen two eggs (from a clutch of four) which were taken in the cliff in 1885. ”

“ I saw in my brother-in-law's garden here a Missel-Thrush's nest with eggs, placed, not more than seven feet from the ground, on and near the end of a slender, nearly horizontal bough of a yew tree which stretched to the edge of the tennis lawn. The way the Missel Thrush has of putting away some of its shyness in the breeding season and approaching our dwelling-houses to breed is well known. Possibly in this case the slender bough was chosen as being difficult of access by cats, which are the greatest curse that the birds of Bloxham gardens suffer from. ”

“ The Wheatear is a common bird. On the mountains and headlands and islands, as well as in some spots along the lower coast, the shrill highly pitched "ece" or "ees," followed by several hard "tacs" or "tecs," was a familiar sound as the pair of Wheatears, accompanied by their full-grown brood, flitted on before me. The only birds which enlivened the dry, stony, barren (the season had been unusually dry) top of Carn Fadryn were a family of Wheatears. I only saw the Whinchat twice—once at Abersoch, and once in a low pass among the hills near Nauhoran. Mr. Coward has seen a few near Abersoch. ”

“ They relate that "a certain Fisherman told us, that in the middle of Winter he once found a Puffin under water, torpid, among the Rocks not far from Bardsey Island, which being again cast into the Sea streightway sank to the bottom. Believe it that will." But Bardsey has always been a strange place, and is so still, as will presently appear from what a man told me about the Frogs. Twenty thousand saints, too, are buried here, albeit one writer sagely remarks: "It would be much more facile to find graves in Bardsey for so many saints, than saints for so many graves." ”

“ Herons are often to be seen in the marshes and harbour, or flying over. Snipes breed in the marshes, and I flushed one from a meadow of good grass, and saw another "drumming" over the high moorland on Cilan headland. Peewits are quite common, having a sufficiency of semi-waste ground to breed on. On the moorland at Cilan a mobbing bird came within a yard of my head as I was innocently gathering and washing a rare bog plant. In some of the narrow green marshes along the coast Peewits are very abundant, and their cries become most wearisome in time. ”

“ The Greenfinch and Linnet exist in fair numbers. I watched a pair of Goldfinches feeding their young in a nest built in an old plum-tree in a garden hedge at Efail-newydd, and saw a pair at Llanbedrog, and other birds at Pwllheli. Mr. Coward has seen a few at Abersoch, so it is probably not uncommon. The House-Sparrow would not seem numerous to anyone coming from a wheat-growing country, there being too little corn for it; but it long ago extended its range into the utmost limits of Lleyn. ”

“ There is no prettier ornament to a rocky coast than these Sea-pies, conspicuous from afar, and their ordinary high clear whistle "fy-feet" or "feet" is always a pleasing sound. I saw birds with and without the white collar, and six flying together (some of which were dull birds) might have been a family party, the young hatched early. ”

“ I hesitate to say breed, for I think of the hours I have spent in an always unsuccessful search for this bird's nest. Where the one little inlet affords a harbour and safe lying for the boats, a stretch of sand and seaweedy rocks is uncovered at low tide. Bardsey is included in Willughby's 'Ornithology' (1678) , among the list "Of some remarkable Isles, Cliffs, and Rocks about England, where Sea-fowl do yearly build and breed in great numbers," but no particulars relating to it are given. ”

“ I do not think that Lleyn, as an ornithological district, should be considered to extend further east than about the mouth of the Afon Dwyfawr on the south, and perhaps the headland called Trwyn y Tâl on the north coast. Further east the country becomes more luxuriant and wooded on the south towards Criccieth, and more mountainous on the north. And at Tremadoc I have met with birds, such as the Blackcap and Pied Flycatcher, which belong to the avifauna of Eastern Carnarvon and Merioneth, but not to that of Lleyn, so far as I know. ”

“ After the winter, when they generally have to work hard for food, come courtship, nesting, rearing young, and moulting. But when the last is over, it seems natural that in the warm hazy days of early autumn, when the birds have plenty of time to bask on the tree-tops and tall hedges, they should sing in a lazy, contented fashion. Also that the young birds of the year should try their voices, and produce weak and imperfect strains. ”

“ But the country is densely populated, and a few hours' drive over the paved roads takes you past numerous little villages and scattered houses, cheerfully adorned with red roofs, white walls, and green shutters. ”

“ Coward observed a pair of the last named breeding at Abersoch in May, 1893. This noisy bird, with which I am very familiar, must, however, be very rare. Once I thought I heard the alarm-note of the Blackcap; but, if it is present, it must be scarce. In the course of an afternoon's walk at Dolgelly, on my way home, I heard two in song; so that I do not think it would have been silent in Lleyn during the time I was there, although the period of song of birds does vary in different districts in Great Britain. ”

“ This part of the district is very favourable for many kinds of small birds; at that season it was looking its best, the hawthorns and some late apples in bloom, and the flowery meadows more sweet with the scent of clover than any I had ever noticed elsewhere. ”

“ We found three eggs in a nest on St. Tudwal's, and a bend in the cliffs near Trwyn Cilan enabled me to drive a bird off her nest, also containing three eggs, which she was loth to leave on account, probably, of the Jackdaws; but with these exceptions I only saw two eggs in any nest in the third week in May. On the west side of Pen Cilan rows of Shags sat on some long ledges, overhung with rock, in the lower part of the cliff. Cormorants, the adults easily distinguished a long way off by the white thigh patch, also resort to the cliffs; but the Shag is much the commoner species. ”

“ On the east side the coast of Bardsey presents a front of dark coloured rock to the restless sea. Here on the sloping rockfaces, and the ledges, the Herring-Gulls, which breed there in considerable numbers, are conspicuous. The steep shelving rocks are varied with more precipitous faces, overhung ledges, hollows, and chasms. Along the coast of the lower lying parts of the island there is a broad breastwork of broken jagged rock, high enough sometimes to form low cliffs, and indented with yawning chasms, whose sides are high and steep enough in some cases to accommodate the Chough. ”

“ They dislike leaving the eggs for fear of being robbed by the Gulls; and, sure enough, a Lesser Black-back appeared on the scene almost at once, speering about the cliff. Two birds sitting on eggs only a foot apart were very interesting, for one was of the ordinary type, and the other a well-marked example of the Ringed Guillemot (as brown, though, as its neighbour) . When at last I induced them to leave their eggs, I saw that both these had a green ground colour, marked with black.
Rock birds, I think, of all three species inhabit one or two small islands off the westernmost part of Lleyn. ”

“ There is a raised ridge of down to be seen at the back of the occiput, making them crested even at that early age. A Sparrowhawk took a bird from the hedge close to us, and, popping over our heads, flew, heavily cumbered, against the wind, low over a big ploughing. Time after time a Peewit rose under him, and he was mobbed all along his course, one bird handing him on to another, until he reached the shelter of the spruce and larch belt, which doubtless held his nest. Some Wheatears apparently breed on the downs ”

“ I did not find the Great Reed Warbler in any other locality in the Dinant district, but met with it near Mechelen.
A. phragmitis.—Pretty common along the Meuse, especially above Hastière. Often to be seen singing on the wing, flying up high into the air also and then descending singing into a low tree or bush. I could not detect the Aquatic Warbler.
Accentor modularis.—I only saw two; one near the railway at Agimont, the other singing from the top of a roadside spruce in the Forest of Ardenne. Here, as in Switzerland, it does not seem to be the familiar garden bird it is with us. ”

“ The larger island carries fair grass on the top, with a quantity of sea-pink and scurvy-grass (Cochlearia) . In the middle is a rocky peak. There were a good many Puffin-holes, and a good many birds, with some Guillemots and Razorbills, sat on the sea; but there were none ashore, being unusually late on account of the stormy weather. Many Herring-Gulls were breeding, and I found a number of nests placed on shelves and in hollows among the rocks, usually, but not always, where there was a little peaty soil, turf, and thrift. Other nests were in the turf at the edge of the rocks. ”

“ Stray pairs were breeding where there was long grass, and these, on emerging from their holes, brushed the grass with frantic efforts for some distance, striding out vigorously with their orange legs. ”