Chapter IV: Part 4

This species is partial to certain parts of the country, and although by no means common is to be met with in the six northern counties of England, in Wales, and in some parts of Scotland. Some authorities say that it is most numerous in the Lake District, but I have met with far more specimens in certain parts of the Principality than anywhere else.

The male has a very pretty, though short and oft-repeated song. It resembles that of the Redstart so closely that it is difficult to say with certainty which bird is producing the music unless the singer be seen. This also applies to its call notes.

A male Pied Flycatcher is a creature of decided character. The one figured in our photograph was busy feeding his mate, sitting on six beautiful pale blue eggs, in a hole in an old tree, which had been struck and partially destroyed by lightning, when a friend of mine and I discovered him. Upon our examining the nesting site the female fluttered out, and joining her mate, they flitted about together from tree to tree until he evidently thought it was time for her to return to her maternal duties. She was, however, afraid to venture back to her nest because my camera stood within a few feet of the entrance hole, and flew nervously from one branch to another in the neighbouring trees. Her mate, with the evident intention of showing her that there was no cause for alarm, came along and, alighting right in front of my apparatus, took a leisurely peep inside the nesting hole. As this had no visible effect upon her nerves he went off and secured a fat, green caterpillar, which he would not offer her anywhere, although she shivered her little wings in supplication, excepting on the threshold of their breeding quarters.

As even this kind of inducement failed, he indignantly gulped down the food, and with a great show of anger, began to chase her round and round, up and down, until at last he forced her indoors. Later on, this female grew bolder, however, and I succeeded in photographing her on the gnarled trunk of the lightning-blasted tree.

A precisely similar kind of thing happened at another nest, but in this instance the lady was stronger minded, and refused to be bullied into the performance of her duties.

In this particular wood, which was of no great size, four pairs of these interesting birds lived within a few hundred yards of each other. The males appeared to spend the day in catching winged and other insects for the females, in singing, and chasing each other away from particular spheres of influence.

The Pied Flycatcher, like its commoner relative, the Spotted Flycatcher, is a migratory bird, arriving in this country in April and leaving again in September and October.

It builds its nest generally in holes in trees, but sometimes in old walls. The structure is composed of dry grass, dead leaves, and moss, with an inner lining of hair and feathers.

=THE LINNET.=

Male Linnets vary almost as much in the colour of their feathers as they do in the quality of their songs. A fine specimen, arrayed in all the glory of his summer dress, has the forehead and crown glossy blood-red, the rest of the head black, and sides of the neck brownish-grey, back and upper wing coverts deep reddish-brown; wing quills dusky, edged with white; upper tail coverts dark brown; tail quills brownish-black, edged with white, except in the case of the two centre feathers; chin and throat greyish-white, streaked along the middle with greyish-brown; breast glossy rose-red. The last-named colour varies greatly in intensity, and in some birds is almost absent. In fact, as Yarrell says, perfect specimens are not often met with, and the carmine cap and breast are generally replaced by brownish lake-red.

Some adult male Linnets have lemon-yellow breasts, and in Germany are considered old birds and the best singers.

The female is a trifle smaller than the male and lacks the red on the top of the head and breast.

This species is distinguished from the Lesser Redpole by having no white bar on the wings and no black upon the chin, and from the Twite, with which it is likely to be confused, by the facts that it has a shorter and less deeply forked tail and the male lacking the red on his rump.

Last spring I spent two days on a Surrey common photographing the Stonechat figuring in the little picture which decorates the front cover of this book. He was bringing food to his offspring in a nest situated amongst some stunted heather growing in a sheltered dell formed by two gorse-clad ridges about eighty feet in height and a hundred yards apart. Although many Linnets were still roaming the countryside in flocks, numbers were busy love-making and pairing close around me, and I shall never forget the sweetness of the twittering and warbling that went on all day long.

The carols were generally sung from the topmost spray of some furze bush, which was a golden blaze of bloom, but occasionally the vocalist would utter his sweetest notes when dropping gracefully through the air to some intended resting-place.

This bird has received a great deal of attention from the poets, some of whom have described its song as a “careless lay” and others as a

“None-offending song of quiet prettiness.”

The call note of the species is a shrill _twit, twit_ and _wee, tye wee_.

A Linnet’s nest is made of small twigs, fibrous roots, dry grass, stems, moss, and wool, with an inner lining of hair, feathers, rabbit and vegetable down; and is situated in gorse, and broom bushes, white and black thorn bushes, tall heather, and juniper. I have found a nest ten feet from the ground, and two nests quite upon it.

The eggs number four to six, are greyish-white in ground colour, tinged with blue or green and speckled and spotted with purple-red and reddish-brown.

A very strange thing about this species is that it appears to grow shyer during the breeding season, whereas nearly all other birds grow bolder. This peculiar characteristic, of course, increases the difficulty of photographing the creature.

Linnets flock together as soon as the breeding season is over--some of them to migrate, and others to wander about the country visiting stubble fields and waste lands in search of seeds. It is a very pleasant sight to watch a flock resting on the sunlit top of some tall tree on a fine winter’s day, and hear the sociable little birds holding a kind of chattering concert.

It is almost needless to add that the Linnet is a great favourite as a cage pet. Specimens caught in the autumn soon adapt themselves to confinement, but those taken in the spring frequently mope and die. One has been known to live as many as fourteen years in a cage, but I have never yet heard of a specimen in confinement donning the crimson colour on its head or breast.

The species has derived its name in several European countries from its fondness for linseed.

=THE SWALLOW.=

This deservedly popular harbinger of spring arrives in England about the end of March and beginning of April, and departs again in September, although specimen’s have been seen during every month of the year, and one hardy individual actually managed to live right through a mild winter in Yorkshire not long ago. There is little need for me to describe the appearance of this familiar bird in detail, but it may be well to say that its forehead, chin, and throat are chestnut brown, upper parts generally and a broad bar across the chest steely blue. Under parts dull, buffy white. The adult Swallow may always be distinguished, on the wing or at rest, from either the Swift or the Martin, by its much more deeply forked tail.

Its nest is generally built in a chimney or on a rafter in a barn, stable, or shed, although I have seen it plastered against a smooth whitewashed wall, on a dangling tendril of ivy that had grown through the roof of a shed, under a stone bridge, inside an old limekiln, on a ledge under the eaves of a shed, on a picture-frame, and inside an old tennis shoe left on a ledge in a boat-house. It is made of pellets of mud generally intermixed with straws and lined with dead grass and feathers. The structure differs in shape according to the site selected for it. Frequently it is formed like half or two-thirds of a saucer when plastered against a wall or rafter, but when on a flat surface the outside consists of a circular wall of mud.

The eggs, numbering from four to six, are white, spotted and blotched with dark, reddish-brown, and underlying specks of grey.

This bird’s song is one of the most joyous and spontaneous in all the realms of Nature, and the poet might well say:

“Thou hast no sadness in thy song.”

It is uttered both whilst the melodist is flashing at lightning speed through the air and at rest on some house-top or tree, and is an exceedingly sweet and exhilarating warble frequently repeated.

During dull weather, when swallows fly low, they utter a note like _wet wet_, and their alarm cry has been fittingly written down as _feetafeet-feetafetit_. Inside buildings they also use another, which is a clear, ringing _pink pink_.

=THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.=

The Golden-crested Wren, or Gold-crest, as it is frequently called, has the distinction of being our smallest British bird, measuring only three and a half inches in length. It is a widely distributed resident, and breeds comparatively close to London and other large towns. On the forehead and round the eyes it is whitish, tinged with olive-green. Crown pale orange in front and bright yellow towards the hind part. The feathers are somewhat lengthened, and form a crest bounded on either side by a streak of black. Upper parts olive-green; wings dusky black with two transverse white bars. Tail quills dusky, edged with yellowish-green. Under parts yellowish-grey, inclining to buff on throat, breast, and sides. The female is not so brightly coloured as her mate.

The nest is generally, though not always, suspended from the branch of a cedar, spruce, fir, yew, or holly tree at varying heights from the ground. I have seen it in a furze bush, and at an elevation of thirty feet or more from the ground in a fir tree. It breeds in shrubberies, plantations, and spinnies, and makes its nest of green moss, lichens, fine grass, spiders’ webs, and hair beautifully felted together and lined with liberal quantities of down and feathers.

The eggs number six or seven, as a rule, and are pale flesh or yellowish-white in ground colour, spotted and blotched with reddish-brown, the markings being most numerous at the larger end.

The Gold-crest’s song is like its singer--very small, soft, and sweet. It is difficult to hear, especially towards the end, unless the listener happens to be very close. In the neighbourhood of Birmingham I once had the pleasure of listening to a bird of this species in an evergreen hedge only two or three feet away from me, and was greatly surprised at the sweet melodiousness of its limited notes.

The sound of its call is something like _tsit, tsit_.

Vast flocks of this wee species occasionally hazard the perils of a journey from the Continent across the North Sea in order to visit our shores, and at such times alight upon the rigging of fishing smacks to rest, and crowd round lighthouses in incredible numbers.

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Transcriber’s Note:

This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These were left unchanged.

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Words and phrases in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this.= One footnote was moved to the end of the chapter. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.

Captions to illustrations are in upper case letters. Descriptions in lower case were added to illustrations without captions. Illustrated drop cap is indicated thus: he ...