In a Cheshire Garden Part 2

In November, 1905, a robin used to come into the house through the open windows and make himself quite at home; he would sometimes sit and sing on the bannisters in the hall.

I saw a very tame robin at Budworth in 1904. I was in the garden with the lady to whom it belonged when the bird flew on to her hand, and he used to come into the drawing-room without any hesitation and take his place at afternoon tea.

In 1910 a pair of robins built in the pulpit desk of Oughtrington Church near here, and hatched out four young ones. A friend who went to service one Sunday evening in June saw a robin flying about and singing until the sermon began, but then it took up a position on the back of a seat near the pulpit and looked up at the preacher, quite silent and apparently listening.

One of the prettiest little episodes of bird-life is the delicate attention bestowed by a robin on the chosen partner of his joys and cares that I have several times witnessed during April and May. Whilst she remained watching and waiting on the ground below, he would fly up to the food-stand and secure a morsel which, with a tender grace, he presented to her. The gallant devotion so plainly expressed by the one and the caressing, coquetting airs of the other were most amusing. I have seen, too, about the same time of the year, one robin feeding another with flies picked from the gra.s.s and the lower boughs of a deadara tree. The robin that was being fed did not attempt to pick up anything for itself, but sat there on the gra.s.s quivering its wings and opening its mouth like a nestling.

Robins often catch flies in the air, flying up from the ground after them, and I have seen one dart off from the branch of a tree, capture a pa.s.sing fly and return again to the same perch, for all the world like a flycatcher.

One showery day in spring I saw a robin on the food-stand washing itself in the rain, spreading out its wings, shaking its feathers, bobbing and ducking about as though it had been in a bath, and I have noticed one washing in wet leaves and drinking from the tips of leaves.

Greater whitethroats are as common in this garden and neighbourhood as in most places. One that had its nest by the old river bank used to come and scold whenever I went near, and never ceased until I left.

Such a proceeding looks like a case of instinct playing a bird false, and serving only to draw attention to what it is wished to conceal.

Lesser whitethroats come to us every year, and may be said to be fairly common in the village. They are always shy and restless and more frequently heard than seen.

There was a lesser whitethroat's nest one year (1898) in a holly bush, in which all five young ones used to be, whenever I looked at them, apparently sleepy, with their heads shoved up over the side of the nest. They never opened their mouths when we went near, and yet often as I watched I never saw the parents feed them.

Blackcaps are not uncommon within easy reach of us, but only twice have I seen one actually in the garden. The first time the unusual sound of its wonderfully clear note attracted my attention was in July, 1899.

The bird stayed here then for several days, singing occasionally all the while. The second time a blackcap came was in May, 1903. It was in the garden for about ten days, and I hoped it might be going to nest here, especially as one day I thought I saw a pair.

I noticed a difference in habits between the July bird and the one that came in May. In July, when the joys and cares of family life were over, there was more deliberation and less shyness. I was able to watch the bird easily and for a long time together. In May he was restless and very wary, and it was with difficulty I could get a glimpse of him. He was always on the move, hunting about in the tops of the trees, and, I thought, singing in compet.i.tion with the willow-wrens.

The blackcap is often placed next to the nightingale as a songster, but there is a very wide interval between them. The most inattentive listener can hardly fail to notice a nightingale's song, but people who are not accustomed to distinguish the different notes of birds are often quite unaware of the presence of a singing blackcap, as the tone of his song mingles with the general chorus.

Golden-crested wrens are not uncommon in winter, but I have never found a nest here. I notice them most often in October and November, as they are hunting in and out the yews and Scotch firs, sometimes a large party, sometimes only a single pair.

One June day I was sitting in a cousin's garden in Wales, when out of an arbor-vitae close by appeared a dilapidated-looking gold-crest, which set to work violently and persistently to abuse me. Herein, I think, like the whitethroat mentioned before, it displayed either a perversion of instinct or a want of sense. If it had only kept quiet I should not have thought of a nest, but it told me so plainly that it had one in that very tree that I looked as a matter of course and found it, packed with fully-fledged young ones.

Chiffchaffs never stay with us, though they are to be found only a few miles away, but I sometimes see them and hear their well-known note in spring and autumn for a day or two.

Willow-warblers abound ("Peggy whitethroat" is the Cheshire name), and it is a delight to catch for the first time each spring their lovely little song, of which, unlike the wearisome iteration of the chiffchaff, one never tires. The American naturalist, John Burroughs, describes the willow-warbler's strain as the most melodious he heard in England, and the only one exhibiting the best qualities of American songsters. He adds: "It is too fine for the ordinary English ear!" As if on a visit of a few weeks to a strange country he could possibly know what most English people either thought or liked!

Willow-wrens as a rule keep pretty high up in the trees, but one sometimes sees them on the gra.s.s picking up flies or flying up after them in the air. Later on in summer they hunt for insects in the kitchen garden, and are often to be seen running up and down the pea-sticks.

Though silent in July, they sing again after the middle of August. I have known a willow-wren's nest here in the middle of a roughish piece of ground that was continually walked over, about as unprotected position as you could wish, and yet the young were successfully reared.

I have seen a willow-wren attack and drive away a perfectly inoffensive marsh-t.i.t that happened to alight near it on the gra.s.s.

The wood-wren, with its "sibilous shivering note," I have heard at Budworth, a few miles away, but never in this garden or immediate neighbourhood.

The garden-warbler, too, is quite a stranger, and I have never recognised it in these parts at all. In May, 1900, I saw and heard one for several days in a garden in North Wales, where it is generally supposed to be unknown.

Sedge-warblers sing incessantly when first they come, but after they have been here for a little while are much less frequently heard. They usually are hidden in the depths of a bush when singing, but I have seen one pouring out its impetuous song mounted on a telephone wire in the open, 20 feet from the ground, and another that sang as it was flying. For several years a sedge-warbler has begun to sing again here in July, not having been heard for some weeks previously. In 1907, for example, from July 24th to August 2nd, he could, without much exaggeration, be said to have sung all day and all night. I heard him at seven in the morning when I got up and at twelve at night when I went to bed, and I have a note of much the same thing in 1910, about the same date. The bird that year chose as his special platform the lower branches of a sycamore, and would every now and then fly off into the air singing all the while at the very top of his voice, and then return to the tree to sing again.

Hedgesparrows are common enough all the year round, and are great favourites of mine. They are elegant birds in their modest way, they are un.o.btrusive and useful, and their song, if not brilliant, is pleasant, and like that of the wren and the robin, it helps to cheer the dull winter months when the more famous warblers are away enjoying the warmth of some sunny southern country.

There is no month in the year in which at one time or another I have not heard the hedge-sparrow's song, but March is the time of all others to hear it, then it seems impossible to get away from it at any hour of the day.

Hedgesparrows creep about in a mouse-like fashion peculiar to themselves, with a series of little running jumps, and the continual shuffling or flipping movement of their wings is very noticeable.

They will take their share of the fowls' food with other birds, and will come all round the food-stand and pick up the minutest morsels of something on the ground, but (except in the case of a bird in the cold weather of January, 1902), I have never seen one make an attempt to get at the food on the stand itself.

Sometimes on first turning out on a dark winter's morning, between seven and eight, hedgesparrows will be squatting on the path, and will almost let you walk over them before they get out of your way.

V.

t.i.tS AND WRENS.

Only once, in August, 1904, have I caught sight of a party of long-tailed t.i.ts in the garden, but a friend who lived hardly a mile away used to tell me that little parties of eight or nine might be seen flying through his orchard nearly every winter. I think he said they called them "churns," or something that sounded like that.

Great-t.i.ts are common the whole year round; and very handsome they look when their suits of velvet-black and yellow are at their best. They are constant visitors to the food-stand, and are not baffled by any contrivance for excluding sparrows, but they are not so plucky or so clever at it as tom-t.i.ts. They are hectoring, full of bustle and importance, and make themselves generally disagreeable to other birds, but I have seldom, if ever, seen one great-t.i.t attack another.

Sometimes one sees a pair of the quietest possible character; on the most affectionate terms with one another they will come to the stand together and appear perfectly oblivious of the presence there of any other birds.

It is not at all uncommon to see a great-t.i.t with a crooked tail, slightly sickle-shaped. It cannot always be the same bird, for it is 16 years since I first noticed a bird with such a tail, and nearly every year still (1912) I see one.

One may often hear a tapping sound in trees and shrubs that is made by a great-t.i.t, and I have watched the bird after considerable tapping draw out a grub of some sort from under the bark. I noticed on another occasion that a t.i.t in making this tapping noise was beating something (through the gla.s.s it looked like a beetle) which it held in its beak against a bough of the tree.

Like tom-t.i.ts, great-t.i.ts will fly off with grains of Indian corn, and, like coal-t.i.ts, they are fond of sunflower seeds. (In spite of what Gilbert White says, I have never seen tom-t.i.ts here touch sunflower seeds.)

A great-t.i.t has a note very much like the "pink, pink" of a chaffinch, which he occasionally uses.

Though great-t.i.ts are, no doubt, handsome birds, they are not nearly so interesting in my opinion as either of the other three common kinds of t.i.t. None of them, indeed, can really compare in interest with that audacious little villain, the tom-t.i.t, or blue-t.i.t, or, as he is called here, blue-cap. He is so full of spirits, so resolute and domineering, I delight to hear his cheery little song, if it is to be called a song.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sundial in Old Church Yard.]

Tom-t.i.ts in abundance come to the food-stand, which in the first instance was specially intended for their benefit. They will come more or less the whole year through if the food is left there, but, of course, many more in winter than in summer, and most of all in February and the beginning of March, when I have counted twelve on the stand at once, but the numbers fall off very quickly towards the middle of March.

I have noticed every year that at certain times of the day, especially from about 12.30 to 1.30, there is a marked increase in numbers. In winter at least no five minutes pa.s.ses without one or more birds appearing, but at mid-day, and again to a lesser extent just before it begins to get dark, they seem literally to swarm.

I have found that all t.i.ts, as well as sparrows and robins, prefer a mixture of bread and fat to fat alone. During February and March, 1897, I weighed all the bread and fat consumed on the food-stand and found that it was as nearly as possible eleven pounds. Lately I have added cocoanuts to the bill of fare; they are appreciated by the t.i.ts, but blackbirds, robins and thrushes prefer the bread and fat mixture, or rather they do not seem to care at all for the cocoanuts.

It is curious to see how quickly birds discover that food has been put out on the stand. One year, after the receptacles had been empty for weeks in the summer, I put in some fat, and in less than five minutes a tom-t.i.t was there. Another time I made a longish block of wood, bored nearly through with holes, which were filled with fat smoothed off level with the surface. This block was hung with the holes downwards, so that from above it could look like a bit of wood only. It was hung up at 10.30 a.m., and at 11.30 a tom-t.i.t had found it out, and was eating away at the fat as he clung to the block back downwards.

Tom-t.i.ts, unlike great-t.i.ts, bully one another most unmercifully. They can recognize each other at a great distance. A tom-t.i.t on the food-stand seems to know at once whether another arriving on the nearest tree, some ten yards or more away, is his superior or inferior in prowess. Sometimes he will ruffle up his feathers as if in resentment at threatened intrusion, at other times he is prepared to make way at once. As is the case with a herd of cows on a farm, the relative standing between them seems to be an acknowledged matter and is seldom contested. To us a couple of tom-t.i.ts appear as like as two peas if we have them actually in the hand, and though it is easy to understand that they can themselves distinguish differences at close quarters, and may have some other sense than we have to help them, yet it is a marvellous thing that they can do so without doubt or hesitation at a distance of yards.

The whole question as to how birds recognize one another is very interesting. We know that a shepherd can tell one sheep of his flock from another as easily as we can distinguish between two men, but in the feathered face of a bird there seems to us so little room for difference of expression, and, generally speaking, if we take feather by feather the description of one bird will apply equally well to any other of the same species.

Tom-t.i.ts as a rule make way for a great-t.i.t, but I have seen them fight occasionally, and the tom-t.i.t does not always come off second-best.

They are complete masters of both marsh and coal-t.i.ts, neither of which dream of resisting them. They pay scarcely any heed one way or another to sparrows or robins.

Both tom-t.i.ts and great-t.i.ts in the flush of their spring-time ardour pay to their chosen helpmates the same delicate attentions as do robins. It is always a pretty picture to see them present their offerings of food, but with t.i.ts it seems a rather more business-like matter and to lack something of the tender sentiment so plainly shown by the robins.

Though not nearly so plentiful as tom-t.i.ts, both marsh and coal-t.i.ts are with us more or less all the year round. Of the two, perhaps the marsh-t.i.t is the more regular, sometimes a pair seem to make the garden their headquarters and to be always about, but several years may pa.s.s without our seeing one coal-t.i.t; then they will become almost as common as tom-t.i.ts for a year or so, when again the number will dwindle down to, it may be, a single pair.

Some years ago all four kinds of t.i.t used to come together to the food-stand, but (with the exception of a pair of coal-t.i.ts in the winter of 1910-11) since 1899 tom-t.i.ts and great-t.i.ts have had it all to themselves, neither marsh nor coal-t.i.ts have been there, though both are still frequent visitors to the garden at all times of the year.