John Keble's Parishes: A History of Hursley and Otterbourne Part 16

GREAT t.i.tMOUSE (Parus major)--or Ox-eye, as he is here called, bold and bright, crying "Peter" in early spring, and beautiful with his white cheek, and the black bar down his yellow waistcoat.

BLUE t.i.t (Parus caeruleus).--Bolder and prettier is the little blue- cap, a true sprite and acrobat as Wordsworth calls him.

MARSH-t.i.t (Parus pal.u.s.tris).--Known by less bright colouring and white breast.

COLE-t.i.t (Parus ater).--More grey, and very graceful. All these four will gladly come to a window in winter for a little fat hung to a string, and will put themselves into wonderful inverse positions.

LONG-TAILED t.i.t (Parus caudatus).--Long-tailed Caper, as is his local name, is more shy, and will not come to be fed; but the antics of a family after they have left their domed nest are delightful to watch, as they play in the boughs of a fir-tree.

HEDGE-SPARROW (Accentur modularis).--Quiet, mottled bird, to be seen everywhere.

PIED WAGTAIL (Motacilla lutor).--Most of these stay with us all winter, but one March evening at least forty-three descended on the lawn at Elderfield, doubtless halting in their flight from southern lands. Most winning birds they are, with their lively hop and jerking tails. Dish-washer is their Hampshire name.

GREY WAGTAIL (Motacilla boarula).--This pretty bird is really partly yellow. It is not very frequent here, but is sometimes found on the Itchen bank; likewise the nest in a reedy meadow.

RAY'S WAGTAIL (Motacilla Rayi).--Ray's Wagtail was catching flies on a window at Otterbourne House in 1890.

TREE PITT (Anthus arboreus), MEADOW PIPIT (Anthus pratensis).--Small brown birds, not easy to distinguish; but the eggs differ, and both have been found.

BULLFINCH (Pyrrhula vulgaris).--It is charming to greet the black head and red waistcoat in the tops of the laurels or apple-trees, and surely this destroyer of insect devourers does more good than harm, if he does pick the buds to pieces in the search. He is a delightful pet, of exclusive and jealous attachments, hating every one except his own peculiar favourite; and his sober-coloured lady has quite as much character as he. One which was devoted to her own mistress would a.s.sail another of the family with such spite as sometimes to drive her out of the room.

STARLING (Sturnus vulgaris).--Green bedropped with gold when seen closely, but at a distance looking more like a rusty blackbird, though its gait on the lawn always distinguishes it, being a walk instead of a hop. Though not tuneful, no bird has such a variety of notes, and the clatter on the root the call-note, the impatient summons of the brood about to be fed, make it a most amusing neighbour, when it returns to the same tree year after year.

RAVEN (Corvus corax).--He has flown over the village several times.

One lived for many years in the yard of the George Inn at Winchester.

CROW (Corvus coronae).--Game-preserving has nearly put an end to him, but he is seen round the folds on the downs in lambing time.

ROOK (Corvus frugilegus).--Shining and black the great birds come down on the fields. There is a rookery at Cranbury, another at Hams Farm at Allbrook, and a considerable one in the beeches near Merdon, for which the rooks deserted some oak-trees nearer the House. While these trees were still inhabited, Mr. G. W. Heathcote observed a number of walnuts under them, and found that the rooks brought them from the walnut avenues. A parliament of these wise birds is sometimes held on the downs, and there are woods where they a.s.semble in great numbers in the autumn, contingents from all lesser rookeries pouring in to spend the winter, and whirling round and round in clouds before roosting.

JACKDAW (Corvus monedula).--A very amusing, though very wicked pet.

There used to be throngs of them in the tower of the old church at Hursley, and their droll voices might be heard conversing in the evening. Mr. Chamberlayne had one which, after being freed, always came down to greet him when he walked in the garden.

MAGPIE (Corvus pica).--Pages might be filled with the merry mischief of this handsome creature. Perhaps the most observable characteristic of the three tame ones closely observed was their exclusive and devoted attachment to one person, whom they singled out for no cause that could be known, and followed about from place to place.

JAY (Garrulus glandarius).--May be heard calling in the pine plantations on Hursley Common. It would be as amusing as the magpie if tamed.

GREEN WOODp.e.c.k.e.r (Picus viridis).--The laugh and the tap may be heard all through the Spring days. In 1890 Picus major, a small, black, and spotted French Magpie, as Devonians call it, was found, but we have no other right to claim it.

WRYNECK (Yunx torquilla), or Cuckoo's mate, squeaks all round the woods with his head on one side just as the cuckoo comes.

NUTHATCH (Sitta europaea).--This pretty creature will come and be fed on nuts at windows in the winter. These nuts he thrusts into crevices of bark to hold them fast while he hammers the sh.e.l.l. The remains may often be found. For many years a pair built in a hole half-way down an old apple-tree covered with ivy at Otterbourne House, and the exertions of the magpie with clipped wing to swing himself on a trail of ivy into the hole were comical, as well as his wrath when he fell off, as he uniformly did.

TREE-CREEPER (Certhia familiaris), winds round and round the trees like a little mouse.

HOOPOE (Upupa vulgaris).--Once in a frost caught alive by a shepherd on the downs, but it soon died.

CUCKOO (Cuculus canorus).--They cuckoo till "in June he altereth his tune." Probably the stammer is the effort of the young ones to sing.

One grew up in a wagtail's nest in the flints that were built into the wall of Otterbourne Churchyard. Another, carried to the other side of the road and caged, was still fed by its foster-parents till it was ready to fly.

WOOD-PIGEON (Columba palumbus) -

Take two cows, Taffy, Taffy, take two-o-o.

Plenty of this immoral exhortation may be heard in the trees. One young pigeon taken from the nest proved incorrigibly wild and ready to flutter to death whenever any one came near it.

TURTLE-DOVE (Columba turtur).--This pretty delicate creature with speckled neck builds in bushes lower than the wood-pigeon, and the mournful note resounds in the trees.

PHEASANT (Phasia.n.u.s colchicus).--Not a real native, but cultivated to any extent. A c.o.c.k pheasant with the evening sun gilding his back is a rare picture of beauty.

PARTRIDGE (Tetrao perdix).--Numerous.

HERON (Ardea cinerea).--Sometimes flies far overhead, the long legs projecting behind.

SANDPIPER (Tota.n.u.s hypoleucus).--Seen walking over a ma.s.s of weeds in the Itchen ca.n.a.l.

SNIPE (Scolopax gallinago).--Brought in by sportsmen from the water meadows.

WOODc.o.c.k (Scolopax rusticola).--Not common, but sometimes shot.

JACK-SNIPE (Scolopax gallinula).--Not common, but sometimes shot.

LAND-RAIL (Crex pratensis).--Corn-Crake. May be heard "craking" in the long gra.s.s in early morning before the hay is cut.

WATER-RAIL (Rallus aquaticus).--In a meadow at Otterbourne, 22nd January 1855.

LITTLE GREBE (Podiceps minor).--Dabchick, as it is commonly called, swims in the Itchen and in Fisher's Pond (on Colden Common), dipping down suddenly without a trace of the least alarm.

MOOR-HEN (Gallinula chloropus).--Very similar are the ways of the moor-hen, with its brilliant beak. But once, by some extraordinary chance, a moor-hen fell down a cottage chimney, and was brought alive for inspection by a boy, who, ignorant of natural objects, as was always the case in villages forty years ago, thought it a rare foreign specimen. It was a thatched cottage, but if it had been slated the moor-hen might have taken the roof for a sheet of water by moonlight, as the Great Water-Beetle has been known to do, and come down the chimney in like manner. A brood comes constantly to be fed on a lawn at Bishopstoke.

PEEWIT (Vanellus cristatus).--Otherwise the Crested Lapwing. It floats along in numbers when migrating, the whole flock turning at the same time and displaying either the dark or the white side of their wings with a startling effect. They seem effaced for a moment, the next the white sails are shown, then gone again. When paired, and nesting in the meadows, their cry causes their local name, as their other English t.i.tle is derived from their characteristic manoeuvres to lead the enemy from their young. Did they learn the habit when their so-called plovers' eggs became a dainty?

GOLDEN PLOVER (Charadrius pluvialis).--Noted at Otterbourne meadows by J. B. Yonge.

WILD DUCK (Anas boschas).--The mallard is splendid in plumage, and in shape is far more graceful than his domesticated brother. In early winter the wild ducks fly overhead in a wedge-shaped phalanx, and by and by they pair, and if disturbed start up with a sudden quack, quack from the copse-wood pond. Broods of downy wild ducks have been brought in by boys, but it has almost always proved impossible to rear them.

TEAL (Querquedula anas).--This very pretty little duck used to build on Cranbury Common, but may have been frightened away by increasing population.

GULL (Larus ca.n.u.s).--Flocks of those white-breasted birds sometimes alight on ploughed fields round Otterbourne, and even some miles farther from the sea. They are sometimes kept in gardens to destroy the slugs.

These birds have all been actually seen and noted down by members of the Yonge family.

FLOWERS