William Henry Hudson

“ From its perch it watches for its prey, but is by no means a motionless and depressed-looking watcher, like the flycatcher: its movements on its stand, as it turns its head from side to side and jerks and fans its tail, frequently uttering its low, percussive, chat-like chirp or call-note, give the impression of a creature keenly alive to everything passing around it. The shrike is, in fact, attentively watching air, earth, and the surrounding herbage and bushes for a victim, which he captures by a sudden dart, taking it by surprise. ”

“ And here we see the advantage of his peculiar colouring—the various soft shades of buff and brown and grey, which at a short distance harmonise with the surroundings, and render him invisible. When perching on a tree he makes himself invisible in another way: his habit is to perch, not crossways on a branch, but lengthways. He rises from the ground when almost trodden on, and goes away with a silent flight, darting this way and that in an eccentric course, and looking more like a great grey mottled and marbled moth than a bird. ”

“ One sunny morning a few months ago, as I stood on a mountain slope among bracken, ling, and furze, and scattered masses of grey rock, watching a small party of grouse near me, it struck me that I had never looked on a more beautiful creature than this bird:—so finely shaped and richly coloured, and proud and free in carriage, and in such perfect harmony with the rough vegetation and that wild and solitary nature amid which it exists. ”

“ But he is never long still, and when he resumes his lively, eccentric, up-and-down and sideway motions he is interesting in another way. One is not soon tired of watching his perpetual mouse-like, independent-of-the-earth’s-gravity perambulations over the surface of the trunk and branches. He is like a small woodpecker who has broken loose from the woodpecker’s somewhat narrow laws of progression, preferring to be a law unto himself.
Without a touch of brilliant colour, the nuthatch is a beautiful bird on account of the pleasing softness and harmonious disposition of his tints ”

“ Like the skylark, it loves an open sky and a wide horizon; but, not being able to soar, it seeks an elevation of some kind to perch on—a hedge-top, or the summit of a bush, or a tall weed in the middle of a field of corn, will serve it; but, best of all, it loves a telegraph-wire, where it sits on high above the world, in sunshine and wind, and without the slightest exertion is able to experience agreeable sensations like those of the kestrel, lark, or tern, when suspended motionless in mid-air. ”

“ A first meeting with the lapwing [291] invariably excites surprise in the beholder. Seen on the ground he is a handsome bird; in plumage and long, curling crest unlike any other British species, elegant in form, and graceful and somewhat stately in his movements. The moment he takes flight, displaying his curiously shaped, rounded wings, that have a heavy, flopping, heron-like motion, he appears like a different creature: he looks awkward and strange, like an owl or a goatsucker driven out of its hiding-place in the daylight. ”

“ At first the flight appears heavy on account of the slow, measured beats of the broad, rounded vans; but as he rises higher, and soars away to a distance, it strikes the beholder as wonderfully free and powerful. The appearance of the bird is then majestic, and its flight more beautiful than that of any other large wading bird with which I am acquainted—ibis, wood-ibis, stork, flamingo, or spoonbill. When pursued by a falcon the heron is capable of rising vertically to a vast height, while the hawk rushes after in a zigzag course, striving to rise above his quarry so as to strike. ”

“ The migrants from the north take their departure in March. In this country nesting begins at the end of that month, and in the pairing season the male woos his mate with a curious and pretty performance, not at all like the wild celestial love-antics of his relation, the common snipe. For a time he abandons his shy, skulking habits—a hermit in love, he comes out morning and evening, and for the space of half an hour continues flying to and fro, with a singularly slow flight, and with plumage puffed out, so that he looks twice his ordinary size. ”

“ In its flying powers it appears, with the grebes and auks, to occupy a position midway between the ever-soaring, aërial gannet and the penguins, that are incapable of flight. In their dark rich, variegated upper, and white under, plumage, the divers again resemble the grebes. The glossy black back, thickly strewn with symmetrical white spots, gives the present species a beautiful and somewhat singular appearance. Out at sea it is a silent bird—silent and shy and solitary—with the cormorant-like habit of making itself invisible by sinking its body beneath the water. ”

“ He is often on the wing, passing directly from place to place with an undulating flight and rapidly-beating wings. When singing he swells his throat out, and delivers his strain with considerable vigour; but his song is of the shortest, and is composed of one or two notes, hurriedly repeated two or three times without variation, and with scarcely any musical quality in it. No sooner is it finished than the bird is off again on his flitting rambles among the leaves and twigs; it is less like a song than an exclamation of pleasure—a cheerful call that bursts out from time to time. ”

“ The robin is an early breeder, and makes its nest beneath a hedge, or in a bank, or in a close bush not far above the ground; it is formed of dry grass, leaves, and moss, and lined with feathers. Six or seven eggs are laid, reddish white in ground-colour, clouded or blotched, and freckled with pale red. When the nest is approached the old birds express their anxiety by a very curious sound—a prolonged note so acute that, like the shrill note of some insects and the bat’s cry, it is inaudible to some persons. Two, and even three, broods are raised in the season. ”

“ In winter, when the elms and other deciduous trees have shed their foliage, and their fine upper boughs appear like a sombre fretwork against the pale sky, the tits are seen at their best; they are then gathered into small flocks or family parties, and may be observed, as they scatter about the tree, clinging to the twigs in every conceivable position, and looking like a company of small sober-coloured paroquets of this cold northern world. ”

“ Only, when he actually hears it for the first time, the hearer makes the sad discovery that the bird he has for long years been listening to in fancy—the nightingale heard by the poet with an aching heart, and the wish that he, too, could fade with it into the forest dim—was a nightingale of the brain, a mythical bird, like the footless bird of paradise and the swan with a dying melody. ”

“ At intervals large numbers of birds rise up, to hang like a black cloud above the trees for some minutes, but as the evening darkens they all finally settle down for the night; still, in so vast an assemblage there are always many waking individuals, and a noise of subdued cawing may be heard throughout the hours of darkness. With the returning light there is a renewal of the loud noise and excitement, as the birds rise up and wheel about in the air before setting out on their journey to their distant feeding-grounds. ”

“ They appear to know just when this occurs, however far from the shore they may be, and, rising and calling to each other, set out on their return, to arrive at the exact time when feeding may begin. It is during these journeys to and fro between the sea and the moors that the curlew looks at his best when, seen at a moderate distance, he passes in small flocks, disposed in the form of a wedge, or letter V, his sharp-pointed wings and long, ibis-like beak clearly outlined against the blue sky. To most lovers of nature and wild bird life the voice of the curlew is his principal attraction. ”

“ The nest is a slight hollow in the ground, scantily lined with a little dry grass; and the eggs are four or five, and rarely six, in number. These are pale bluish white in colour, and in some cases have pale brown markings.
The male hen harrier, seen on the wing when quartering the ground in quest of prey, keeping but a few feet above the surface, is certainly one of our handsomest hawks. Its flight, although not wavering, is as buoyant as that of the common tern, and the pale colouring—soft blue-grey above and white beneath—seems in harmony with its slender figure and airy, graceful motions. ”

“ At the approach of sunset, and until dark, the call of the leader may be heard from the chosen roosting-ground. It is a familiar sound to everyone in the rural districts—a harsh and powerful cry; but, like the clamour of blackbirds and redwings on going to rest, and the cawing of rooks at eventide, it has a great charm for the lover of nature. ”

“ It reads like a tale from the ‘Thousand and One Nights,’ in which we sometimes encounter human beings, good, or bad, or merely fantastic, who wander about the world disguised as birds. Only when we see and handle the cuckoo’s egg placed in the hedge-sparrow’s, or pipit’s, or wagtail’s nest, when we see the large hawk-like young cuckoo being fed and tenderly cared for by its diminutive foster-parent, do we realise the extraordinary nature of such an instinct. ”

“ The white-fronted goose is the fourth and last on our list of grey geese—four forms of one species, as some hold—and, like the others, it comes to us from the north in winter, but is more common in Ireland than in Great Britain. It is like the bean-goose in size, but differs from it in its white front, and from the grey lag goose in having the under parts more speckled with black feathers. Its voice is most like that of the grey lag, but is more trumpet-like in sound, and the rapidly repeated notes give its cry a laughter-like character; laughing goose is one of its common names. ”

“ The contrast of such a method with that of other small birds—warblers and wagtails, and swallows and finches—is very great. Feeding-time with them is song-time and play-time; their blithe voices and lively antics and motions show how happy they are in their lives. The creeper is a rather silent bird, but he utters in the pairing season a shrill, high-pitched call-note, and the same sound is emitted when the nest is in danger. ”