Jackdaw

“ I like the jay, for he is not only a pretty but an affectionate bird, living lovingly in one family till the next breeding-season. They are, however, sadly persecuted by keepers—for what reason I know not. The jackdaw, that cunning bird, has, I see, a nest in a hole of that old and gnarled pollarded beech-tree, setting marauding boys at defiance. He is no great favourite of mine, though I like to hear his tenor when mixed with a flock of rooks, or when he caws on the projections of a church tower. ”

“ XXVII A STORY OF A JACKDAW At one end of the Wiltshire village where I was staying there was a group of half-a-dozen cottages surrounded by gardens and shade trees, and every time I passed this spot on my way to and from the downs on that side, I was hailed by a loud challenging cry—a sort of "Hullo, who goes there!" Unmistakably the voice of a jackdaw, a pet bird no doubt, friendly and impudent as one always expects Jackie to be. And as I always like to learn the history of every pet daw I come across, I went down to the cottage the cry usually came from to make enquiries. ”

“ The fact that Jerdon mentions their breeding in trees is interesting, for in England they nest in buildings in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand.
The jackdaw makes a most admirable pet. When taken young it becomes remarkably tame, soon learning to follow its master about like a dog. Moreover, the bird is as full of tricks as is a wagon-load of monkeys, so that Mr. Westell does not exaggerate when he says that the jackdaw when kept as a pet seems more of an imp than a bird. It thieves for the mere sake of thieving. The nest is sometimes a veritable museum of curiosities. ”

“ For a few days he hid himself in different trees of the garden, and sang the praises of sorrow; but his family, though they comprehended him not, recognised his note, and came searching him with beak and claw, and drove him out so as not to have him near them committing such scandalous noises to the ears of the public.
"He lies in his throat!" said the old Jackdaw. "Everything he says he garbles. If he is our son he must have been hatched on the wrong side of the nest!" ”

“ Occasionally a grave-looking heron is seen balancing himself by some incomprehensible feat of gymnastics on the very topmost twig of a larch-tree, where he swings about in an unsteady manner, quite unbecoming so sage-looking a bird. Occasionally a thievish jackdaw dashes out from the cliffs opposite the heronry, and flies straight into some unguarded nest, seizes one of the large green eggs, and flies back to his own side of the river, the rightful owner of the eggs pursuing the active little robber with loud cries and the most awkward attempts at catching him. ”

“ Presently the Jackdaw family settled itself down to sleep; only the youngest one sat up and watched. Now he had seen something beautiful. Was it going to come true? Its light was like the song of the nightingale in the leaves overhead: it glowed, and throbbed, and grew strong, flooding the whole place where it lay.
Soon, in the silence, he heard a little wail of grief: “Why have they carried me away here,” sighed the glow-worm, “out of the tender grass that loves the ground?”
The littlest Jackdaw listened with all his heart. ”

“ All round the old flowering thorn there is a small carpet, milk-white and rose-red, of strewn petals. Every flower that has a cup, is holding it brimful of cool dew. Vick is sitting on the top of the stone steps, her ears pricked, and her little black nose working mysteriously as she sniffs the morning air.
On the bright gravel walk stands the jackdaw, looking rather a funereal object in his black suit, on this gaudy-colored day; his gray head very much on one side, his round, sly eyes turned upward in dishonest meditation. A worse bird than Jacky does not hop. ”

“ It is a noble tower; and the jackdaws evidently have pleasant homes in their hereditary nests among its topmost windows, and live delightful lives, flitting and cawing about its pinnacles and flying-buttresses. I should almost like to be a jackdaw myself, for the sake of living up there.
In front of the church, not more than twenty yards off, and with a low brick wall between, flows the River Witham. ”

“ To no little surprise,
Nobody seem'd one penny the worse!
The day was gone,
The night came on,
The Monks and the Friars they search'd till dawn;
When the Sacristan saw,
On crumpled claw,
Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw!
No longer gay,
As on yesterday;
His feathers all seem'd to be turn'd the wrong way ”

“ Slowly the sun rose over the forest, tinging the leaves with his golden rays, and warming all creation into life as he lighted up the world with his glorious lamp. Then the sounds in the forest became more and more frequent. From every thicket birds carolled forth their joyous songs; the wood-pigeon softly cooed to her mate in the fir-trees; the jackdaw cackled in the old pollard as he looked out from the hole in which his nest was built; the jay screamed in his harsh, discordant notes, trying to put the blackbirds and thrushes out of tune, and failing signally ”

“ A jackdaw is a jackdaw all the world over, and it is absurd to try to make him anything else.
[232]
As it has not been my good fortune to spend any time in Kashmir, my acquaintance with the jackdaws of India is confined to those that visit the Punjab in winter. These do not appear to frequent the vicinity of houses; I have invariably found them feeding in fields at some distance from a village. They roost, along with the crows and the rooks, in remote parts of the country. Every evening during the half-hour before sunset two great streams of birds pass over Lahore. ”

“ If any man live a sad life—a life environed with constitutional blues—let him buy a jackdaw. The mere sight of a jackdaw scratching his head, with his leg cocked over behind his wing, is enough to cure a leaden indigestion. ”

“ The jackdaw is one of the birds that the gamekeeper wars against without ruth, shooting and trapping them in the breeding season, especially when they are occupied in feeding their young, and can be seen and easily shot in their frequent journeys to and from the nesting-tree. ”

“ The former supports Mrs. von Erhardt-Siebold’s argument for Jackdaw, in PMLA lxii (1947) , 1–8. The jackdaw belongs to the large family of corvidae and is relatively small (13–14 inches) ; its “song” caw is certainly descriptive, but the bird itself is hardly as small as the riddle implies. Wyatt meets various guesses with a proper sense of humor. To Trautmann’s objection that swallows do not tread and gnats do not chirp loudly, he holds that “tread” is not to be taken too literally. ”

“ The jackdaw is very like Corvus splendens in appearance. It may, however, be easily distinguished by its white eye. There is at present a jackdaw in confinement in the Lahore “Zoo.”
The coot (Fulica atra) is another bird common at Home which is also abundant in India. He needs no description, being familiar—too familiar—to every sportsman in India. He is the “black duck” of Thomas Atkins that remains on the jhil after all the duck have disappeared. It is unnecessary to say that the bird is not a duck, but a water-hen that apes the manners of one. ”

“ If the jackdaw is not the first of his family in intelligence, he is certainly not behind any of them. In beauty he does not compete with the three species already described—chough, jay, and pie—and at a distance is only a lesser rook or carrion crow in appearance ”

“ Amongst those pets which were more agreeable to us than to our friends, I fear I must class my raven. In their mischief-loving propensities the raven and the jackdaw bear a strong resemblance to each other; but there is an aspect of grave and venerable dignity about the former which renders him infinitely more amusing when he stoops to be jocose. I have been told by a naturalist, that, next to the tortoise, the raven lives to the greatest age of any of the lower animals, not unfrequently attaining the dignity of seventy or eighty years. ”

“ The reason of this is that the jackdaw is more adaptive than the other species. He has been compared in this respect to the house-sparrow, for he can exist in town as well as country, and readily adapts himself to new surroundings. The variety of sites he uses for breeding purposes shows how plastic are his habits. He breeds apart from his fellows, like the carrion crow; or in communities, like the rook and chough. He builds in hollow trees in parks and woods, in rabbit-burrows, in ruins, church-towers, and buildings of all kinds ”

“ OLD JACKDAW. Why do you look for us?
VAIN JACKDAW. I am a jackdaw. I want to be with jackdaws.
OLD JACKDAW. We will have nothing more to do with you! Away!
VAIN JACKDAW. But, brothers, my dear, dear brothers, please let me stay with you!
OLD JACKDAW. You would not walk with jackdaws! Away!
YOUNG JACKDAW. You would not talk with jackdaws! Away!
ANOTHER JACKDAW. You thought yourself too fine for jackdaws! Away!
ALL JACKDAWS. Away! Away!
[They drive the Vain Jackdaw from the park.]
THE LITTLE JACKAL AND THE CAMEL SCENE I TIME: one morning. ”

“ This bird is much less than the crow. He has a large head and long bill, in proportion to the size of his body. The colour of the plumage is black, but on some parts inclining to a bluish hue; the fore part of the head is of a deeper black. The Jackdaw feeds upon nuts, fruits, seeds, and insects; and builds in ancient castles, towers, cliffs, and all desolate and ruinous places. The female lays five or six eggs, smaller, paler, and marked with fewer spots than those of the crow. ”

“ A jackdaw, with iron-grey patch on the back of his broad poll, dropped in my garden one morning, to the great alarm of the small birds, and made off with some large dark object in his beak—some beetle or shell probably, I could not distinguish which, and should most likely have passed the spot without seeing it. The sea-kale, which had been covered up carefully with seaweed, to blanch and to protect it from the frost, was attacked in the cold dry weather in a most furious manner by blackbirds, thrushes, and starlings. ”

“ A good jackdaw, well trained to a happy family, is the life of the cage next to the monkey. He’s at all the roguishness and mischief that it is possible for a man to be at. If he sees a cat or a dog, or anything asleep and quiet, he’ll perch on its head, and peck away to rouse it. He’s very fond of pitching on the top of the cat and turning the fur over, or pecking at the ears, till the cat turns round, and then he’s off. If there’s a rat in his way, he’ll peck at its nose till it turns round, and then peck at its tail. ”

“ The Jackdaw is found throughout most of the countries of Europe and in many parts of Asia, occupying some places in large numbers, and entirely avoiding other districts with a fastidiousness for which we are unable to account: steeples, towers, or old buildings are the situations it prefers for building purposes, but it will also make its nests upon high trees or even shrubs. The disposition of this species is lively and its habits extremely social ”

“ When upon the wing the flight of the Jackdaw is not unlike that of a Pigeon, and its mode of rising, falling, or performing a variety of evolutions remarkably graceful and easy. Its voice is capable of considerable development, and, like many other members of this family, it has but little difficulty in imitating human speech and other sounds; it chatters almost incessantly during the breeding season, but not offensively, for its tones are soft and very varied. ”

“ The monotonous appearance of the steppe itself is only intensified in winter, when the snow smooths over the broken surface, and even necessitates the placing of mud posts at regular intervals to mark the roadway for the Kirghiz post-drivers. But in the spring and autumn its arid surface is clothed, as if by enchantment, with verdure and prairie flowers. Both flowers and birds are gorgeously colored. One variety, about half the size of the jackdaw which infests the houses of Tashkend and Samarkand, has a bright blue body and red wings ”

“ Many a person has been surprised, on looking into a deserted rabbit burrow, to find it choked up with a strange mass of sticks and twigs, and still more surprised when he has brought to view a couple of jackdaw’s eggs, or hears the hungry cries of the young birds. This seeming alliance of the rabbit and the jackdaw is not unique, for it is observed in the Coquimbo owl, or burrowing owl, as it is sometimes called, and the prairie dog of North America, both of which reside within the same warren, and seem perfectly satisfied with each other’s company. ”

“ They conceal such parts of their food as they cannot eat, and often, along with it, small pieces of money or toys, frequently occasioning, for the moment, suspicions of theft in persons who are innocent. In Switzerland there is found a variety of the Jackdaw, which has a white ring round its neck. In Norway, and other cold countries, they have been seen entirely white. In a state of nature, jackdaws and rooks frequently feed together, and the Jackdaws come to meet the rooks in the morning, and also accompany them for some distance on their retreat at night. ”

“ A jackdaw is another black bird, though it has a little grey on the head and a little on the body. It belongs to the crow family and builds its nest very high up, and so is very hard to find. The nest is made of straw and bits of dry grass and other little bits of old stuff. Its eggs are the same colour as the starling. [55a]
3. (d) The colours of a thrush are, on the back a browny grey, the throat and breast are a whity grey with spots of brown, the tail also brown with a little white and spots underneath, and the wings are brown like the back. ”