HE F THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID \ ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. SPRING. ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE Jlar-feofe of British CHARLES DIXON, AUTHOR OF "RURAL BIRD LIFE," "EVOLUTION WITHOUT NATURAL SELECTION, "OUR RARER BIRDS," " STRAY FEATHERS FROM MANY BIRDS," ETC. ETC. PART AUTHOR OF U A HISTORY OF BRITISH BIRDS." 1 Many study Nature in the house, and when they go out of doors cannot find her." AGASSIZ. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED. 1890. [A/I rights reserved.} CHARLKS DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. - I ls> , PREFACE. ONE of the greatest charms attached to the study of Ornithology is to keep a careful register day by day and month by month of the various movements and habits of birds. The recording of these facts is abso- lutely the best apprenticeship an aspiring student can serve ; it teaches him to see things for himself, not to rely on statements made by others ; it gets him into the best way of investigating Nature's secrets ; and above all, it furnishes him with an endless store of fascinating information relating to the economy of wild creatures. Diaries nowadays are often rilled with too much trivial, not to say worthless matter with stupid thoughts, and chronicles of trashy incidents, which would be put to much better use were they more often made the receptacle for the story told by Nature and her works. The country is full of charm its interest never wanes ; and that district becomes the most interesting which is the most carefully and intelli- gently explored. In the following pages I have endeavoured to place before the reader a few of the stirring incidents and vivid scenes of bird life during the cycle of the year. It has been my object to convince him that interesting information respecting the feathered tribes may be gleaned through every month of the twelve. It has been my constant endeavour to impress on the student the fact that the birds he observes and studies are animated K1S66589 vi PREFACE. by Life precisely the same as his own, and to allow these feathered creatures that important share of intel- ligence which their high mental qualities demand, Too long have birds been regarded as mere machines; yet their little lives, far from being the prosaic, auto- matic existence we have been so accustomed to suppose them, are full of poesy and intellectual fire. To appre- ciate thoroughly the habits and the ways of birds we must never lose sight of their mental attributes. I have so arranged the present volume that the student may readily acquaint himself with what is going on among the birds during every month of the year. I make no pretensions to completeness ; the subject is too vast and varied to be exhausted in a single volume. In many cases the dates given can of necessity only be approximate ones an allowance of a few days either way must often be made for differ- ences of latitude, state of the weather, and other local influences. Should this little volume serve to increase the interest taken in Natural History, or prove an incentive to the keeping of local records of the ways and move- ments of birds, the labour of compiling it from the note-books filled during twenty years of field and forest errantry will not have been altogether a vain or a fruitless one. CHARLES DIXON. 6, INGATESTONE TERRACE, WARREN ROAD, TORQUAY. CONTENTS & Spring, CHAPTER I. PAGE THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING . . . i I CHAPTER II. AMONG THE BIRDS IN SPRING . . , . . . IO CHAPTER III. STRANGERS OF THE SPRING . . . . . 38 CHAPTER IV. BIRD ORNAMENTS AND TOURNAMENTS . . . 5 2 CHAPTER V. SPRING-TIME ON THE MOUNTAINS 6 1 CHAPTER VI. OUR FEATHERED ENGINEERS 70 CALENDAR FOR SPRING 87 Part $& Rummer* CHAPTER I. THE WONDERS OF THE SUMMER . . . " . . 93 CHAPTER II. AMONG THE BIRDS IN SUMMER .... . IO2 CHAPTER III. FEATHERED FRAUDS . .:.;:,. . . .124 CHAPTER IV. THE WAYS OF BIRDS . . . . . ' . 134 CHAPTER V. AMONG THE WHEAT ... . . . . . 143 CALENDAR FOR SUMMER . . ", ;> ~- ~. ' 154 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE BEAUTIES OF THE AUTUMN . . . . l6o CHAPTER II. AMONG THE BIRDS IN AUTUMN .. . . . .169 CHAPTER III. STRANGERS OF THE AUTUMN ..... 1 93 CHAPTER IV. MIXED CONGREGATIONS ...... 231 CHAPTER V. WHERE THE MIGRANTS GO ...... 240 CHAPTER VI. PARAGRAPHS ON PLUMAGE ...... 249 CALENDAR FOR AUTUMN ...... .256 . Winttv. CHAPTER I. THE TERRORS OF THE WINTER ..... 263 CHAPTER II. AMONG THE BIRDS IN WINTER ..... 272 CHAPTER III. SOME VISITING CARDS ...... . . 296 CHAPTER IV. SOME BIRDS OF THE WINTER , . . . . 39 CHAPTER V. BEDTIME . . . . . 322 CALENDAR FOR. WINTER ...... 335 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE CHAPTER I. THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING. Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal Mildness, come ; And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, While music wakes around, veil'd in a show'r Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend. SPRING ! What a rich feast for the naturalist is embodied in that one little word! It means to him the awakening, as it were, into life of many forms of animals and birds and plants. It means unwonted activity in every domain of Nature, a season of glad sounds and pleasant sights. All creatures love the spring-time ; they vie with each other in making merry on Nature's birthday. The groves re-echo songs of gladness from countless feathered throats ; insect life in endless variety sallies forth with incessant hum ; flowers spring up like magic from every wood and hedgerow ; each tree and bush shows signs of returning vitality ; and animals that have been lying snugly \ 2 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. dormant through the wintry blasts come out into the world again and flit and leap about for joy. In early spring the whole realm of Nature seems like a restless sleeper about to awaken after the long winter's night. Every day the buds on trees and hedges expand more and more, and many a tiny shoot may be detected amongst the carpet of dead leaves. The hazel bushes are gay with tasselled ornaments ; primroses cast their pale faces upwards from the mossy banks, snowdrops and daffodils carpet the woodland glades. The woods, which in winter looked gray and net-like, appear much more dense when viewed from a distance, and brown tints steal imperceptibly over them as the millions of tiny buds swell out. Wherever we may wander during the months of spring, we never need be at a loss for instruction and amusement. In the cool, green woods, when May has carpeted them with bluebells ; by the stream, as the softest shades of greenery steal over the alder trees ; on the moors, whose wide expanse is the chosen haunt of many interesting birds ; along the lanes ; in the fields ; by the sea- shore everywhere the glories of spring are unfold- ing. Here we may muse on the secrets of the life around us ; here we may study its philosophy, and enjoy its manifold pleasures. One of the greatest triumphs which natural science has achieved in modern times is the re- cognition it has succeeded in obtaining for the mental capabilities of the lower animals. The THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING. 3 old school of philosophers, whose views on Mind were extremely limited and bigoted, has given place to a newer and more enlightened class of observers. Birds, for instance, are no longer re- garded as mere automatic machines, governed by mysterious impulses all vaguely classed under the convenient term of " instinct," but as creatures endowed with mind, with mental powers very similar to those which control the movements of man himself. At no other period of the year, perhaps, are these various mental powers so well displayed as in the spring-time. For instance, what enormous powers of memory birds call into action in performing their long journey from Africa, and other remote regions, to their summer quarters in this country ! What passion and jealousy ani- mate them in the pairing season ; what a large amount of imitation, reason, and forethought are required in the all-important task of selecting a site for the nest, and then in building the structure itself! How much more interesting and fascinat- ing, too, does the study of birds become when, instead of classing all this brain- work as mysterious " instinct," we watch the progress of the little Mind which prompts these actions, and note the -endless variation of the method by which these mental powers are used ! Take the subject of Migration first. The tiny leaves are just bursting from the buds on the birch trees in this grand old Yorkshire coppice ; the ferns are beginning to uncurl their fronds deep down in the damp mossy B 2 4 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. nooks between the big boulders of millstone grit. Spring is creeping rapidly over the valleys and clothing every twig and spray with delicate green. Suddenly, as if by magic, the Chiffchaff appears. Scores and hundreds of them may be heard chiff- chaffing from the birch and alder trees, and even from the long bilberry wires and heath that in some places half conceals the rocks. No man saw these birds arrive ; silently they make their ddbut in their summer quarters, journeying to them in the night when all is still and the road is safe. Whence have these little feathered wanderers come ? They are all the way from Northern Africa; from the oases in the Great Desert; from the groves of Morocco and Fez and the country of the lawless Touareg. They have crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, " passed along the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and France, and over the stormy English Channel ; then two hundred miles further still, nearly the length of England, to the old familiar coppices in this Yorkshire valley. Think of the magnitude of such a journey ; fifteen hundred miles of flight for a pair of little wings almost as delicate as gossamer, supporting a body which would go inside a big thimble ! Think of the little mind encased in this feathered casket ; the recalling to memory of old familiar landmarks on the way ; the eye for detail ; the knowledge of locality brought into action between the date- palms of Algerian oases and the bilberry wires and birch trees of Yorkshire! And remember that THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING. 5 this identical Chiffchaff has come right back again to the spot where it built its nest last year, and is about to make a fresh one not half-a-dozen yards away from the very bush which shielded its previous home ! How very much more fascinating is the philosophy of a rational migration, than to assume that the Chiffchaff is prompted to fly hither it feels not how, it knows not why ! The Chiffchaff has had to learn its way like any other traveller ; and has been taught many of the tricks of the journey by former experience. Then re- member the Chiffchaff is only a unit in the great migrating army of birds ; and that there are others which come from more distant regions still the Swallows, for example, which traverse sultry Africa from end to end and perform a journey of six thousand miles twice every year of their lives. But we have only touched upon the very margin of this fascinating subject yet. Watch our little Chiffchaff hopping about the alder bushes by the stream. Note the intelligence conveyed in its little eye, now expressive of alarm, now of boundless trust, questioning you, reading your very thoughts. It is perfectly amazing what an amount of expression can be seen in the eyes of a bird an unerring index to the mental powers at work in the brain. Then comes the courtship of our stranger Chiffchaff, How boldly the cock-bird chases his mate amongst the tree-tops ; or how softly he whispers to her down among the bilberry wires ; and how 6 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. coyly she receives his advances ! No two birds pay court the same ; each love-making has its individual peculiarities, prompted by the little reasoning mind behind the feathers. Jealousy is rife even in such a tiny creature, and he will fight furiously with any rival male that intrudes upon his lady-love or seeks to alienate her affections. Then, the wedding over, we may watch the Chiff- chaffs searching out a site for their nest. In and out of the wires and heather stems, up and down the alder bushes, amongst the bluebells and the polypoddies, every nook is surveyed, and its advantages discussed, until the mutual choice is made at last. Next comes the building of the nest ; memory, imitation, and reason each playing an important part in the course of its construction. The merry little male goes out to seek for grass and moss and feathers, pausing every now and then to sing his simple song, and bringing them bit by bit to his mate, who does the greater part of the building. Gradually the home is made, a beautiful example of bird architecture, half-domed, and snugly hidden away behind a cluster of fern and heath and grass below a birch tree on the hillside. Day after day goes by ; the cock-bird sings more joyously than ever ; there is true love in this old Yorkshire coppice, and where there is that there is happiness. Their home has been finished this three days ; and now the pearly eggs are laid morning after morning until six of the precious speckled treasures take up the greater THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING. 7 part of the nest. The pair of Chiffchaffs are brimful of joy ; you can see it in their expressive eyes, and observe it in their every action. Then comes the long period of incubation ; male and female sharing the loving task between them ; until finally their patience and their self-sacrifice are rewarded by the appearance of six wee, tender, weakly nestlings. All through the lengthening spring days the faithful little parents feed and tend their brood, watch over them and care for them until they are able to quit the nest and begin life for themselves. There is something in the very air of spring conducive to musing on the secrets of wild life. For me it is a season of wonderment and awe, and always inspires thoughts that bear upon the higher philosophy of the science I love. To watch the stirring pageant of life being marshalled into review order by that one grand solar force is pleasure indeed. Then right through the glorious spring-time the mental faculties of birds may be studied most advantageously, and note-books may be filled with charming facts bearing upon this fascinating subject. This is the season for the awakening of life, and the commencement of Nature's revels. The woods and fields are full of objects of interest ; every day increases their abundance. No pen can do justice to the glories of the spring. In every direction life in count- less varied forms is appearing. Let the naturalist revel in the feast which Nature so unstintingly 8 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. provides. All the wild creatures of the woods and fields are his very own his to study and observe, his to record their ways and movements, his to love, admire, and protect. The pleasures of the naturalist who delights to chronicle the ever-changing phenomena of spring, and loves the birds and flowers and insects for their own sakes, and for the charming memories they recall of seasons past and gone, may be simple ones, yet, with all their simplicity, they never fail to yield true happiness to a contem- plative mind, and furnish more real gratification than all the more costly enjoyments combined that wealth can bestow. Bounteous Nature showers her gifts with unsparing hand around us, yet her varied pleasures never satiate or tire the mind ; and what is more, no calamity can rob us of the rich store of information we can glean in her pleasant pathways once gathered, it remains an endless source of delight and recreative change. I firmly believe that if the charm of out- door observation of Nature were more widely known, attended as it is with all the benefits of early hours, fresh air, and tranquillity of mind, the mentally distracted would seek relief by becoming naturalists ; and the heated ball-rooms and wild dissipations of town life would lose their seductive attractions in the higher and the nobler and the healthier pursuit. I would not thrust upon such novices the dry details and the drier jargon of science, for such are apt to repel rather than con- THE GLORIES OF THE SPRING. 9 vert ; but I would teach them to watch the development of wild life in woods and fields, and to chronicle the ways of all wild creatures. Let us therefore do all we can to popularise the study of Natural History ; to guide the younger gene- ration to the wilderness rather than to the dancing rooms and theatres, for in doing so we elevate the mind to a far loftier standard, and save the body from many of the deadly perils with which nineteenth-century civilisation sur- rounds it. Musing thus, we are apt to forget the ebbing away of time until reminded by the settling gloom and the noisy Blackbirds that night has come again. We must therefore reserve for our next chapter some of the most prominent and stirring incidents of bird life in the spring. CHAPTER II. AMONG THE BIRDS IN SPRING. SPRING-TIME among the birds is replete with interest for the naturalist ; and every day, nay, almost every hour, the feathered tribes are becoming imbued with ever-increasing animation and activity. Perhaps the first birds to feel and foretell the advent of spring are the Thrushes. At morn and even the speckled Song Thrush pipes his oft-repeated strains from the evergreens or the lofty and still leafless trees ; whilst the Missel- Missel- thrush is occasionally heard, especially thrush ceases J April?' I6th during the boisterous days of March. The sweet-voiced Blackbird is in full song during the very earliest days of spring, and his mellow music breathes the prophecy of coming life over bare hedgerows and leafless woods. The Starlings feel the influence of the changing year, and may be observed, with drooping wings and puffed-out plumage, sitting on the chimney-stacks or water- spouts warbling their curious song. Spring's magic influence spreads far and wide over all living creatures. Birds hitherto silent suddenly AMONG THE BIRDS IN SPRING. n begin to sing ; flocks of birds separate ; a Robin's nest in all its rustic beauty calls for our admira- tion ; the Rooks begin to build, after much noisy deliberation, in the tops of the tall elm trees ; and we often wonder how they can carry such opera- tions on at all, so ceaselessly do the long branches sway and bend to and fro in the high March winds. In the first few days of spring those birds that build early are busy ; and love, courtship, and marriage are their ruling impulses. Among many birds "house-hunting" is the order of the day. We see the comical little Blue-tits ex- ploring every knot-hole and cranny, and delibera- ting and discussing the conveniences of each before finally choosing one for their nest. Others, more fortunate, return to the old familiar nest- hole, and jealously guard it from the intrusion of wandering strangers. Robins, Wrens, and Thrushes are all on the look-out for suitable nesting sites, and when once the great question is settled, they never wander far from the spot until the all-important duties of the year are over. As time goes on, and boisterous March has dried up the rills and fallows, and April comes once more with her fickle smiles of sunshine and her copious tears of rain, the migratory birds begin to make their appearance. First and fore- most of these little strangers is the Wheatear, 2SJ? a bird that frequents the stony grounds, old March> quarries, downs, and sheep-walks. Almost simul- taneously with his arrival we hear the monotonous 12 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. notes of the Chiffchaff from the woods. Few bi rc ls call so incessantly as this little brown-coated Warbler ; his voice is heard in never-changing tones until he leaves us again in autumn, or, to be more accurate, until the moult commences. It is a very singular circumstance that the Chiffchaff is without a song, especially when we know his congener, the Willow Wren, warbles most melo- diously, and one which seems to show the Chiff- chaff's much closer affinity with the larger and more brightly coloured Wood Wren, whose musical powers are also smaller than the Willow Wren's. In its habit of frequenting trees, and in the colour of its eggs a most important character among this family of birds the Chiffchaff is certainly more closely allied to the Wood Wren than it is to the Willow Wren. A few days later the amves, s th j atter \[^\ Q bird steals silently back from his winter retreat in Africa to his summer quarters in the woods, and gardens, and fields of our own country. Soon after his arrival his remarkably sweet and plaintive little song may be heard in almost every tree and bush, and a few weeks afterwards the pretty, semi-domed nest is built amongst the brambles and tall herbage on some mossy bank half-hidden by anemones and nodding bluebells, in which the female lays half-a-dozen tiny white eggs, speckled with pale reddish-brown. One of the most marked characteristics of bird life in early spring is that it becomes more dis- persed. In winter birds congregate in localities AMONG THE BIRDS IN SPRING. 13 best able to supply them with food and shelter, but in spring they spread themselves over the entire country. Delicate little Wagtails run Pied Wag . daintily over the clods of earth and along the ing%r