Part 8

Two or three days after arriving he begins to sing, and continues in song until the middle, or a little past the middle, of June, when the young are hatched. In fine weather he sings at intervals throughout the day, but his music is more continuous and has a more beautiful effect in the evening. For an hour or two after sunset it is perhaps most perfect. In the dark he is silent, but if the moon shines he will continue singing for hours. That is to say, _some_ birds will continue singing; as a rule, not half so many as may be heard during daylight.

The nest is nearly always placed on the ground beneath a hedge or close thicket; it is rather large, and composed of dry grass and dead leaves loosely put together, the inside lined with fine dead grass, rootlets, and vegetable down. The eggs are four or five in number, and of a uniform olive-brown colour.

During incubation and after the young are hatched the parent birds display the most intense solicitude when the nest is approached, and flit from bough to bough close to the intruder’s head, incessantly repeating two strangely different notes--one low, clear, and sorrowful, the other a harsh, grinding sound.

The return migration is in August and September.

Whitethroat.

Sylvia cinerea.

[Illustration: FIG. 27.--WHITETHROAT. ⅓ natural size.]

Head ash-grey tinged with brown; rest of upper parts reddish brown; wings dusky, the coverts edged with red; lower parts white faintly tinged with rose colour; tail dark brown, the outer feathers white on the tips and the outer web, the next only tipped with white. _Female_ without the rosy tint on the breast. Length, five and a half inches.

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The whitethroat, or greater whitethroat, as the name is sometimes written, is one of the commonest and best known of the soft-billed songsters that spend the summer and breed in our country. It inhabits all parts of the British Islands, excepting the most barren. Even to those who pay little attention to the small birds that come in their way the whitethroat is tolerably familiar, less on account of its song, which is in no way remarkable, than for the excited notes and actions of the bird, sometimes highly eccentric, which challenge attention. The whitethroat is, moreover, readily distinguishable from its colour--the reddish brown hue of its upper plumage and the unmistakable white throat, which give it a conspicuous individuality among the warblers. It inhabits the wood-side, the thickets, the rough common, but of all places prefers the thick hedge for a home. Shortly after the bird’s arrival, about the middle or near the end of April, he quickly makes his presence known to any person who walks along a hedgeside. The intruder is received with a startled, grating note, a sound expressive of surprise and displeasure, and, repeating this sound from time to time, the bird flits on before him, concealed from sight by the dense tangle he moves amidst. Presently, if not too much alarmed, he mounts to a twig on the summit of the hedge to pour out his song--a torrent of notes, uttered apparently in great excitement, with crest raised, the throat puffed out, and many odd gestures and motions. Sometimes he springs from his perch as if lifted by sheer rapture into the air, and ascends, singing, in a spiral, then drops swiftly back to his perch again. It is a peculiar song on account of its vehement style and the antics of the singer, more so when he flies on before a person walking, now singing, now moving farther ahead in a succession of wild jerks, then suddenly ducking down into the hedge. It is also a pleasing song in itself, although for pure melody the whitethroat does not rank very high among the greatly gifted birds of its family, or sub-family. If we include the nightingale and robin, it should be placed about the sixth on the list, the other singers that come before it being the willow-wren, blackcap, and garden warbler.

The nest of the whitethroat is a round, flimsy structure, formed of slender stalks of grass and herbs, and lined with horsehair, and is placed two or three feet above the ground, in the brambles and briers of the hedge, or in a large furze-bush. The five eggs are of a greenish white, speckled with olive, and sometimes blotched and marked with grey and light brown. One brood only is reared. Nettle-creeper is a common name for this bird, on account of its love of weeds, especially of nettles, no doubt because the small caterpillars it feeds on are most abundant on them. It is also fond of fruit, wild and cultivated, and visits the gardens near its haunts to feed on currants and raspberries.

Lesser Whitethroat.

Sylvia curruca.

Head, neck, and back smoke-grey; ear coverts almost black; wings brown edged with grey; tail dusky, outer feather as in the last species, the two next tipped with white; lower parts nearly pure white; feet lead colour. Length, five and a quarter inches.

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The difference in size between this warbler and the one last described is very slight; still, there is a difference; and the descriptive epithet of _lesser_ would also be a suitable one if applied in another sense. He is a less important bird. To begin with, he is much rarer, being only of local distribution in England and Scotland, and unknown in Ireland; in colouring he is more obscure; his trivial song has nothing in it to attract attention; he is shyer in habits, passes much of the time among the higher foliage of the trees he frequents, and is, consequently, not often seen.

He arrives in this country about or shortly after the middle of April, and is found in thickets and copses, and hedges in the neighbourhood of trees. Like most of the warblers, he is exceedingly restless, and moves incessantly among the leaves, picking up the aphides and minute caterpillars, and from time to time darts into the air to capture some small passing insect. Like the common whitethroat, he is also fond of ripe fruit, especially currants and raspberries. 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 lesser whitethroat nests in orchards, coppices, thick hedgerows, bramble and furze bushes on commons, and among tangled vegetation overhanging streams, but in all cases the nest is placed in the midst of a dense mass of foliage. This is a somewhat loosely made and shallow structure, composed of dry grass-stems and small twigs, bound together with cobwebs and cocoons, and lined with fine rootlets and horsehair. Four or five eggs are laid, in ground-colour white or dull buff, blotched and speckled with greenish brown, with underlying markings of purplish grey.

Blackcap.

Sylvia atricapilla.

[Illustration: FIG. 28.--BLACKCAP. ⅓ natural size.]

Head above the eyes jet-black, in the _female_ chocolate-brown; upper parts, wings, and tail ash-grey slightly tinged with olive; throat and breast ash-grey; belly and under wing-coverts white. Length, five and a half inches.

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This brilliant songster arrives in this country about the middle of April, in some years considerably earlier. It is found throughout England and Wales, and extends its range to Scotland and Ireland, only in lesser numbers. Though widely distributed it is rare, except in some districts in the southern and western counties of England. A person familiar with the ornithological literature of this country, but having little personal knowledge of the birds, who should go out to make acquaintance with the blackcap, would be surprised at its rarity. After much seeking, he would probably come to the conclusion that, speaking of warblers only, there are at least half a hundred willow-wrens, and perhaps twenty whitethroats, to one blackcap. Another curious point about the blackcap is that it appears to be almost unknown to the country people. It is a rare thing to find a rustic, man or boy, who knows it by that or any other name, though he may be quite familiar with the redstart and whitethroat. On these last two points I find that my experience coincides with that of John Burroughs, the American writer on bird life, in the accounts of his observations on British song-birds. There is a third point on which I also agree with him; this, however, is not a question of fact, but of opinion or of individual taste, and refers to the merit of the blackcap as a singer. His is a song which has always been very highly esteemed, and it has often been described as scarcely inferior to that of the nightingale. Gilbert White of Selborne described it as ‘a full, deep, sweet, loud, wild pipe; yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory; but when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, but inward, melody, and expresses great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior, perhaps, to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale excepted.’ After reading such a description it is a disappointment to hear the song. Nevertheless, it is very beautiful, and given out with immense energy, as the bird sits on a spray with throat puffed out, and moves its head, sometimes its whole body, vigorously from side to side. The song is a clear warble composed of about a dozen notes, rapidly enunciated, loud, free, of that sweet, pure quality characteristic of the melody of our best warblers. The strain is short, and repeated from time to time, the intervals often being filled by lower notes, sweet and varied--the ‘inward melody’ which White describes. Burroughs’s description of the song is as follows: ‘While sitting here I saw, and for the first time heard, the black-capped warbler. I recognised the note at once by its brightness and strength, and a faint suggestion in it of the nightingale’s; but it was disappointing: I had expected in it a nearer approach to its great rival.... It is a ringing, animated strain, but as a whole seemed to me crude, not smoothly and finely modulated. I could name several of our own birds that surpass it in pure music. Like its congeners, the garden warbler and the whitethroat, it sings with great emphasis and strength, but its song is silvern, not golden.’ This account of the blackcap’s song is interesting as coming from a foreigner who has paid great attention to the bird music of his own country, and it is on the whole a very good description; but I should not say that the blackcap’s strain is crude, however wild and irregular it may be; nor that there is in it even a faint suggestion of the nightingale’s.

In its active, restless habits this warbler resembles the other members of its group; but it exceeds them all in shyness. When approached it becomes silent, and conceals itself in the interior of the thicket. It frequents woods and orchards; also hedges and commons where large masses of furze and bramble are found, especially in the vicinity of trees. The nest is made of dry grass, lined with hair or fibrous roots, and is placed in the forked branches of a thick bush, three or four feet above the ground. The eggs, of which five or six are laid, are of a light reddish colour, mottled and blotched with darker red and reddish brown. They vary greatly, both in the depth of colour of the mottlings and in the pale ground-tints.

The blackcap lives on insects, which it often captures on the wing, and on fruits, and is fond of raspberries and currants. Its autumn migration is in September.

Garden Warbler.

Sylvia hortensis.

Upper plumage greyish brown tinged with olive; below the ear a patch of ash-grey; throat dull white; breast and flanks grey tinged with rust colour; rest of under parts dull white. Length, five and a quarter inches.

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This warbler was first described as a British species by Willughby, more than two centuries ago, under the name of ‘prettichaps’; and Professor Newton, in a note to Yarrell’s account of it, says: ‘This name (prettichaps) seems never to have been in general use in England, or it would be readily adopted here.’ The old name of prettichaps, it may be mentioned, does not appear to be quite obsolete yet: I have heard it in Berkshire, where it was applied indiscriminately to the garden warbler and blackcap.

The garden warbler is not common anywhere. In Ireland it is scarcely known; in Scotland, Wales, and a large part of England it is very rare. It is most frequently to be met with in the southern counties, especially in Hampshire. Very curiously, Gilbert White did not know this warbler, which may now be heard singing any day in spring in the neighbourhood of Selborne village.

The garden warbler is often said to rank next to the blackcap as a melodist. The songs of these two species have a great resemblance; it is, indeed, rare to find two songsters, however closely allied, so much alike in their language. The garden warbler’s song is like an imitation of the blackcap’s, but is not so powerful and brilliant: some of its notes possess the same bright, pure, musical quality, but they are hurriedly delivered, shorter, more broken up, as it were. On the other hand, to compensate for its inferior character, there is more of it; the bird, sitting concealed among the clustering leaves, will sing by the hour, his rapid, warbled strain sometimes lasting for several minutes without a break.

The garden warbler is a late bird, seldom arriving in this country before the end of April. It builds a rather slight nest, in a bush near the ground, of dry grass and moss, lined with hair and fibrous roots. The eggs are five in number, and are dull white, sometimes greenish white, blotched and speckled with dull brown and grey.

The food of this warbler consists of small insects; and it is also fond of fruit and berries.

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Six species of the genus Sylvia are included in books on British birds: the four already described, the orphean warbler (_Sylvia orphea_), an accidental visitor from Central and Southern Europe, and the barred warbler (_Sylvia nisoria_), from Central, South, and East Europe.

Furze-Wren, or Dartford Warbler.

Melizophilus undatus.

Upper parts greyish black; wing-coverts and feathers blackish brown; outer tail feathers broadly, and the rest narrowly, tipped with light brownish grey; under parts chestnut-brown; belly white. Tail long; wings very short. Length, five inches.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.--DARTFORD WARBLER. ⅓ natural size.]

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The furze-wren, never a common species in this country, is now become so scarce, and is, moreover, so elusive, that it is hard to find, and harder still to observe narrowly. Its somewhat singular appearance among the warblers--its small size, short, rounded wings, great length of tail, and very dark colour--its peculiar song, and excessively lively and restless habits, and the fact that it was first discovered in this country (1773), where, though so small and delicate a creature, it exists on open, exposed commons throughout the year, have all contributed to make it a fascinating subject to British ornithologists. In England it inhabits Surrey and the counties bordering on the Channel; but it has also been found in suitable localities in various other parts of the country, and ranges as far north as the borders of Yorkshire. I have sought for it in many places, but found it only in Dorset. Forty or fifty years ago it was most abundant in the southern parts of Surrey; it was there observed by the late Edward Newman, who gave the following lively and amusing account of its appearance and habits in his ‘Letters of Rusticus on the Natural History of Godalming’ (1849): ‘We have a bird common here which, I fancy, is almost unknown in other districts, for I have scarcely ever seen it in collections.... I mean the furze-wren, or, as authors are pleased to call it, the Dartford warbler. We hear that the epithet of Dartford is derived from the little Kentish town of that name, and that it was given to the furze-wren because he was first noticed in that neighbourhood. ... If you have ever watched a common wren (a kitty-wren we call her), you must have observed that she cocked her tail bolt upright, strained her little beak at right angles, and her throat in the same fashion, to make the most of her fizgig of a song, and kept on jumping and jerking and frisking about, for all the world as though she was worked by steam; well, that’s more the character of the Dartford warbler, or, as we call her, the furze-wren. When the leaves are off the trees and the chill winter winds have driven the birds to the olive-gardens of Spain, or across the Straits, the furze-wren is in the height of his enjoyment. I have seen them by dozens skipping about the furze, lighting for a moment on the very point of the sprigs, and instantly diving out of sight again, singing out their angry, impatient ditty, for ever the same. Perched on the back of a good tall nag, and riding quietly along the outside, while the foxhounds have been drawing the furze-fields, I have often seen these birds come to the top of the furze.... They prefer those places where the furze is very thick, and difficult to get in.... And although it is so numerous in winter, and so active and noisy when disturbed by dogs and guns, still, in the breeding season it is a shy, skulking bird, hiding itself in thick places, much in the manner of the grasshopper lark, and seldom allowing one to hear the sound of its voice.’

Spring is, however, the season of the furze-wren’s greatest activity: its lively gestures, antics, and dancing motions on the topmost sprays of the bushes are then almost incessant, as it pursues the small moths and other winged insects on which it feeds; and its curious and impetuous little song is then delivered with the greatest vigour. It has also a harsh, scolding note, uttered several times in rapid succession, and a loud musical call-note.

The nest is placed among the dense masses of the lower, dead portion of a thick furze-bush. It is a flimsy structure, composed of dead furze-leaves, small twigs, and grass-stems, lined with finer stems, and sometimes with horsehair. Four or five eggs are laid, white in ground-colour, sometimes tinged with buff or with greenish, thickly spotted and freckled with pale brown over paler brown and grey markings. Two broods are reared in the season.

Golden-crested Wren, or Goldcrest.

Regulus cristatus.

Upper parts olive tinged with yellow; cheeks ash-colour; wing greyish brown, with two transverse white bands; crest bright yellow in front, orange behind, bounded by two black lines; under parts yellowish grey. _Female_: colours not so bright; crest lemon-colour. Length, three and a half inches.

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The golden-crested wren has the distinction of being the smallest British bird; it is also one of the most widely distributed, being found throughout the United Kingdom. Furthermore, it is a resident throughout the year, is nowhere scarce, and in many places is very abundant. Yet it is well known only to those who are close observers of bird life. The goldcrest is not a familiar figure, owing to its smallness and restlessness, which exceed that of all the other members of this restless family of birds, and make it difficult for the observer to see it well. Again, it is nearly always concealed from sight by the foliage, and in winter it keeps mostly among the evergreens, and at all times haunts by preference pine, fir, and yew trees. In the pale light of a winter day, more especially in cloudy weather, it is hard to see the greenish, restless little creature in his deep green bush or tree. Standing under, or close to, a wide-spreading old yew, half a dozen goldcrests flitting incessantly about among the foliage in the gloomy interior of the tree look less like what they are than the small flitting shadows of birds.

In March, and even as early as the latter part of February, the male is frequently heard uttering his song; but he is not of the songsters that perch to sing, and pour out their music deliberately and with all their might. The goldcrest’s song comes in as a sort of trivial distraction or relief--a slight interlude between the more important acts of passing from one twig or spray to another, and snatching up some infinitesimal insect so quickly and deftly that to see the action one must watch the bird very closely indeed. And the music, of which the musician makes so little, is of very little account to the listener. It is the smallest of small songs--two notes, almost identical in tone, repeated rapidly, without variation, two or three times, ending with a slight quaver, scarcely audible, on the last note. The sound is sharp and fine, as of young mice squealing, but not quite so sharp, and more musical; it is a sound that does not travel: to hear it well one must stand not farther than a dozen or fifteen yards from the singer.

Yarrell has the following passage on the song of the goldcrest: ‘Pennant says he has observed this bird suspended in the air for a considerable time over a bush in flower, while it sang very melodiously; but this peculiarity does not appear to have been noticed by other naturalists.’ I have observed the male, in the love season, hovering just above the bush, in the topmost foliage of which its mate was perched, and partially hidden from view. It is when engaged in this pretty, aërial performance, or love-dance, that the golden-crested wren is at his best. The restless, minute, sober-coloured creature, so difficult to see properly at other times, then becomes a conspicuous and exceedingly beautiful object; it hovers on rapidly-vibrating wings, the body in almost a vertical position, but the head bent sharply down, the eyes being fixed on the bird beneath, while the wide-open crest shines in the sun like a crown or shield of fiery yellow. When thus hovering it does not sing, but emits a series of sharp, excited, chirping sounds.

The goldcrest builds a pendent nest, made fast to the small twigs under a branch of yew or fir, and uses a variety of materials--fine dry grass, leaves, moss, and webs--closely woven together, lining the cavity with feathers. It is a very ingenious and pretty structure. The eggs laid are from six to ten, of a pale yellowish white, spotted and blotched, chiefly at the large end, with reddish brown.

In the autumn, in the months of October and November, a great migratory movement takes place among the goldcrests in the north of Europe; and in some seasons incredible numbers of these small travellers arrive, often in an exhausted condition, in Northumberland and on the east coast of Scotland. After resting close to the sea for a day or two, they resume their journey, and distribute themselves over the country.