Wild Spain Part 18

After a stiff climb to one Kite's nest, built in a tall branchless aspen, whose base was barricaded by clinging th.o.r.n.y briars, I was disappointed to find no eggs. The Kite had sat close, and I had just shot her from the nest: all around hung the customary decorations, yet the big nest appeared to contain nothing but a white rag. I turned this over, and there, beneath and almost wrapt in what proved to be a delicate cambric handkerchief, embroidered with the name "Antonia M.,"

lay two handsome eggs! The fair Andaluza who had lost this property might throw an interesting light on the distances traversed by Kites in the search thereof: Shakespeare warned her (_Winter's Tale_, Act IV., Sc. 2), "Where the Kite builds, look to lesser linen."

Another denizen of the _pinales_ requires pa.s.sing notice--the Raven. It is curious that in Spain these birds nest later than in northern lands.

In Northumberland the Raven lays early in March, or even at the end of February, amidst snow and frost. Here, on the last day of April, we found two nests on pines not far apart. One was warmly lined with sheep's wool, but still empty; the other with rabbits' fur, and contained five fresh eggs.

The nests of Ravens, Kites, Buzzards, and Booted Eagles are hardly distinguishable from below, except that the eagle usually selects the main fork, the others building out on the lateral branches. In the crevices and foundations of all these large nests are often inserted the untidy, gra.s.s-built edifices of the chestnut-headed Spanish Sparrow (_Pa.s.ser salicicolus_), a forest-loving species, not found in the haunts of men like his cousin of the streets, and having a special predilection for sharing the homes of the larger raptores, as our Sparrows at home build under the nests in a rookery.

The large birds of prey are always difficult to shoot, even at their nests: and for capturing them the circular steel-traps proved invaluable, saving much time and being almost certain in their action.

The miseries of a _puesto_, or ambush, of an hour, or even two, lying on the burning sand, in the stifling heat of the underwood, to await the return of the birds, one does not forget. For minutes that pa.s.s like an eternity, the keen-eyed Kite will hover and sail overhead; meanwhile a hissing column of mosquitoes have focussed themselves over one's face: black ants, like small dumb-bells, and creeping things innumerable, penetrate up one's sleeve and down one's neck: while at the critical moment, when one must remain rigidly motionless, a huge hairy spider of hideous mien gently lowers itself on to one's nose.

A Kite or Buzzard is too cautious to return directly to the nest.

Alighting first on a distant pine, it will approach by three or four flights, and at last one knows that the coveted prize sits well within shot, but either directly behind, or in such a position that (from the ambush) the gun cannot be brought to bear. The trap saved all this, and rarely failed to secure such specimens as were required--many caught by the beak and killed instantly.[52]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate x.x.xI.

SAND-DUNES AND CORRALES OF DOnANA.

Page 245.]

A characteristic of the forests of Donana are the enormous sand-hills--mountains of blown sand dazzling in the reflected sunlight, and devoid of green thing or trace of life, beyond the track of prowling Lynx or Mongoose, or the curious "broad-gauge" _vestigia_ of the tortoise. Stay: there is a thin black strip of moving objects--they are all ants, and that is one of their great highways--a beaten track connecting two great industrial centres. Except on the chosen line--a mere strip barely an inch wide, though hundreds of yards in length--not another insect will be visible on the wastes of sand. To the selected route each member of their infinite community confines his course as systematically as the steamships of our great ocean lines. One cannot resist the temptation of interrupting this well-regulated microcosm.

Instantly confusion spreads in the black ranks: around the point of obstruction the intercepted battalions spread out like a fan: the tumult and disorder extend backwards along either column till for yards the sand is carpeted with the fragments of a disorganized host. But these scattered units are each seeking to re-establish their lost continuity.

The re-formed column deflects a little to pa.s.s on one side or the other (not both), and in a few minutes the "trade-route" has resumed its former monotonous regularity.

Elsewhere the sand-wastes are clothed, especially in their deeper dells and hollows, with cistus-scrub or tamarisk, and the stone-pine (_Pinus pinea_) somehow finds sustenance and even luxuriates. How plant-life can survive on the remnants of pulverized rock is a mystery--though here, perhaps, the deep-seated roots strike into alluvial soil below--and no more comprehensible in view of the a.n.a.logous fact that the vines producing the richest Spanish wines also flourish in equally ungenial soils. The vintages of Jerez are garnered from grapes grown on arid and silicious soil: the strong red wine of Val-de-Penas, so grateful in torrid Spain, comes, literally, from a "valley of stones," and in the Alto Douro the vineyards occupy hillsides composed of little bits of (what looks like) broken slate and disintegrated shale, so little coherent, that the slopes must be terraced before they are cultivable.

Strange anomalies--plant a vine in rich soil, and you get vine leaves--in tropical lands, the vine becomes a barren evergreen--in arid soil or shale, it produces nectar.

Firm and compacted as appears the substance of these sand-hills--the sandstone of a future age--it yet retains, to some extent, its shifty and unstable character. At intervals its ma.s.ses elect to move onwards and to engulf forests over which, for centuries, they have impended.

Immediately below where we sit, the ridge terminates, abrupt as a precipice. Two hundred yards beyond, the sloping sand-foot is studded with half-buried pines--several forest monarchs already entombed to their centres, alive, but struggling in their death-throes. Of others, farther back, only the topmost branches protrude, sere, yellow, and dead, from the devouring particles. And beneath those glistening sands, hidden far from sight, doubtless there rest the skeletons of buried forests of bygone days.

Just above us in the peak of the stone-pine under whose shade we enjoy the midday rest, is a huge platform of sticks--a deserted throne of the king of birds. Now this eyrie is deserted, the daylight shows through its centre, and the tree is occupied by different tenants--a pair of Cushats: before now we have seen them share the same tree with the tyrant. Bird-notes are hushed during the midday heat, and silence reigns over the forest: presently from afar comes the strident _kark, kark_ of the Raven, and then from mid-air resounds the musical scream of a Kite floating in the heaven above.

Riding along the open glades, the most conspicuous birds in spring are the brilliant Rollers and Hoopoes, parties of Hawfinches and Crossbills, always shy, an occasional Spotted Cuckoo (_C. glandarius_) or Southern Grey Shrike (_L. meridionalis_); handsome Woodchats (_L._ _rufus_) scold in every bush, and various Finches and Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, t.i.ts and Creepers, enliven the woodlands, and sprightly Rufous Warblers the drier plain. Among the cane-brakes and _carices_ that fringe the marshy hollows skulk several other warblers--the Great Sedge and Black-headed Warblers (_S. arundinacea_ and _melanocephala_), Orphean, Cetti's, and the little Fantail, besides our familiar Willow-Wrens, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Redstarts and Robins--the latter resident, and very bright in colour. The Black Redstart has already disappeared (April), but from day to day one sees our British migrants arriving, resting, or pa.s.sing forward on their northern journey. Swallows especially are conspicuous: to-day the air is alive with them, sweeping along the open glades: to-night they roost in chattering hosts in the trees around our camp--to-morrow they are gone, not a swallow remains: and this occurs a dozen times during April and May.

On April 13th and two following days there occurred a conspicuous "through transit" of Pied Flycatchers, and two days later (in another year) the brushwood was alive with Redstarts, all on pa.s.sage. On the 25th we were visited for a couple of hours by hundreds of Alpine Swifts: and the same evening the large Red-necked Nightjars (_C. ruficollis_) arrived, to add their churring note to the crepuscular chorus of frogs and night-birds for the rest of the spring and summer. One evening in May, while watching a pair of Golden Orioles to their nest, I witnessed a rather curious eviction. A Spanish Green Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Gecinus sharpii_), her gullet crammed with ants, flew to a hole in a wild-olive, but was met at the entrance by a furious Little Owl (_Athene noctua_), which soon drove the clumsier bird (which had no idea of self-defence) screaming to the shelter of some brushwood. Soon after, her mate returned, but met with a similar reception, the savage little owl perching meanwhile on an adjacent branch, where he sat bolt upright, all fluffed out, and snapping with rage. On examining the place, I found the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs had a numerous family, nearly ready to fly: while the owl had deposited a single egg in an adjoining hole. The execution of the aggressor seemed, at first, the only means of saving this thriving family, but, on second thoughts, I decided that the justice of the case would be met by removing the defendant's egg, and filling up his hole with sticks.

The Orioles' nest I shortly afterwards discovered, built in a white-elm, at the extreme end of a long pendant branch, the whole of which it was necessary to cut down. This nest, however, was empty. The Golden Orioles do not lay till nearly the middle of May, and from the shyness of the old birds, and the aerial situation of the nest, their eggs are among the most difficult to obtain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOOPOES.]

During the early part of May we found many nests of Hoopoes, some in hollow trees, one in a ruined outhouse, which we were using as a stable, and which, in a previous year, had been similarly occupied by a Roller, and always affords a home to two or three pairs of the Spotless or Sardinian Starling (_Sturnus unicolor_), a species which, in spring, replaces the common kind. On the outskirts of the woods were many nests of Goldfinch and Serinfinch, Common and Green Linnets, Blue and Great t.i.t, Willow-Wren, Woodchat, &c.; and in the open rushy glades, those of Black-headed Warbler, Blackcap and Garden Warbler, Whitethroat, Spotted Flycatcher, Grey-headed Wagtail (_Motacilla cinereocapilla_), and others. I looked in vain in these pine-woods for the Crested t.i.t, which occurs near Gibraltar, and which my brother found numerous in Navarre.

On the 10th May I found a couple of Nightingales' nests in the tiny garden-patch adjoining a forester's cot, and a week later obtained several nests of the Melodious Willow-Warbler (_Hypolais polyglotta_) with their beautiful vinous-pink eggs; later still (May 28th), those of the Rufous Warbler (_aedon galactodes_) among the cactus-bushes:--but this is getting suspiciously like a catalogue.

One circ.u.mstance deserves pa.s.sing remark--the relatively smaller number of eggs laid in the south than is the case with many of the same species further north. In Spain, several of the warblers, &c. above mentioned, lay only four eggs; the Blackbird, as a rule, but three, and these much brighter coloured than at home.

Delightful days were those spent riding through these pathless forests, redolent of the exhalations of pine and rosemary, and a hundred aromatic shrubs, and resplendent with the glory of the southern spring-time. What words can convey the contrast of dark _pinal_ and dazzling sand-waste, or catch the play of sunlight glancing through ma.s.sed foliage on russet trunks and the soft pale verdure of the brushwood? For long leagues these forests stretch unbroken save by rushy glades and park-like opens, where at dusk the Red Deer come to seek rich pasturage, and the Wild Boar ploughs deep trenches in his search for succulent roots, varied by a _bonne-bouche_ of mole-crickets.

CHAPTER XXI.

BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPANISH SPRING-TIME.

II.--THE CISTUS-PLAINS AND PRAIRIES.

Leaving the pinal, or pine region, let us spend a fortnight in the open bush-land beyond. Pa.s.sing successively the famous manchas of the Alameda Honda, the Rincon de los Carrizos, and Majada Real--each coverts of repute, though all unknown to geographers and marked upon no map--we traverse next the forest-glades of the Angosturas, and enter upon a different region, where fresh landscapes and new beauties await appreciative eyes. Here the swelling sand-dunes trend away southwards--towards the sea. The dark bushy pine gives place to open heath and brushwood, stretching away to the horizon, here and there diversified with scattered clumps of cork-oak, aspen, wild-olive, and poplar.

The country around our quarters is a level plain of evergreen scrub--lentiscus, broom, heaths of varied kinds, and mile upon mile of sombre grey-green cistus, generally about shoulder-high, but deepening in places into impa.s.sable jungle. Here and there are stagnant pools, around whose banks grow immense cork-oaks, embedded amidst tree-heath (_Erica arborea_), giant heather and arbutus, all interlaced with the twining, th.o.r.n.y fronds of briar. It is in these dank, dark depths that the old boars select their lairs, and they are the home of Lynx and Wild-Cat, Badger, Genet, and Mongoose, and of many interesting birds, from the Eagle to the Turtledove. The following record of some of our spring rambles will give an outline of the fauna of this region:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SERENADE.]

_April 15th._--We were astir early, a few stars shining dimly, and the last of the frogs still croaking in the _acequias_, as we sipped our matutinal chocolate upon the verandah;

?e?e?e?? ???? ????, ?e?e?e?? ???? ????,]

repeat the frogs, as in the Stygian chorus of old. Far away over the half-lit expanse of cistus a pair of large eagles were already hunting for their breakfast, and an owl slipped close overhead and disappeared into a crevice of the roof above, where we could hear the snoring and snapping of the strigine community as the night's booty was being discussed. We were away by sunrise, at which hour the singular, resonant song of the Partridge-c.o.c.ks (Red-legs) was ubiquitous: from almost every ilex-grove came the half-choking _chukar, chukar_, while the love-sick bird bowed and gesticulated, standing nearly bolt upright with half-expanded wings on some dead branch or shattered trunk, sometimes on the crest of a sand-ridge.[53]

Within a quarter-mile of the lodge we found a Kite's nest, shot the old bird, replaced her two eggs with two hen's eggs and a steel-trap: and had hardly ridden two hundred yards ere the male swept down and was caught. Seldom are so fine a pair of birds secured so easily! During this day we found no fewer than six nests, for the Kite, as before stated, prefers the open country to the forest, and almost each clump of cork-trees was tenanted by a pair. These cork-groves are also occupied by many other species--by birds of plumage whose resplendent hues appear almost tropical--such as Golden Oriole, Roller, Bee-eater, Hoopoes, Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, Azure-winged Magpie, and others hardly less brilliant. Amid the ilex-groves the Golden Oriole hangs suspended, hovering like a Kestrel in mid-air, his rich orange l.u.s.tre justifying the Spanish name--_oropendola_: the Roller, clad in chestnut and azure, and rich parti-coloured Hoopoes and Pied Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs flit among the foliage.

Presently a harsh "chack, chack" announces the arrival of a wandering party of Bee-eaters, most brilliant of European birds; and a score of these sweep round, alternately rising and poising, or soaring on clean-cut, hawk-like wing, then darting downwards amidst the ma.s.ses of flowering heaths in pursuit of industrious _aphidae_. The Bee-eaters pa.s.s on: but there is no truce for the insect-world, for other deadly enemies, the Woodchat and Southern Grey Shrike, sit by on every bush, intent on impaling heavy-flying bee or beetle. From the alcornoques there resounds the shrieking maniacal laughter of the flame-coloured Spanish Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Gecinus sharpii_) as he flies heavily from tree to tree with rustling, undulated flight: then there is an occasional Azure-winged Magpie (_Cyanopica cookii_), there are Wood-Pigeons and Turtle-Doves, Spotted Cuckoos, and Magpies in swarms. The cavernous trunks are occupied by colonies of Jackdaws, less h.o.a.ry-naped than ours, the lesser crevices by Hoopoes, Scop's and Little Owls.

Nearly all the brilliantly-plumaged birds which at this season lend a semi-tropical character to the Spanish avi-fauna, are spring-migrants--pouring across the straits during the months of March and April, and retiring to African lat.i.tudes in autumn. Here is a brief record, showing dates of arrival, &c., chiefly from the observations of one year (1891), but supplemented where necessary by those of previous springs, with a few incidental notes.

_February 21st._--Many Swallows arrived: in thousands on 23rd--a complete nuisance while snipe-shooting. On February 28th some were already beginning to nest.

_February 26th._--A single Hoopoe arrived: numerous by 3rd March. Also observed a Goshawk.

_February 28th._--A pair of Egyptian Vultures, and many Lesser Kestrels were seen to-day.

_March 1st._--Great Spotted Cuckoo, and a single Wheat-ear appeared.

Many of the Wigeon and other ducks, and all Golden Plovers are now gone.

Shot four Garganey.

_March 8th._--First Serpent-Eagle (two more on 10th), and many Black Kites, in _pinales_. The White Wagtails entirely disappeared about this date. Landrail shot.

_March 10th._--Hundreds of Wood-Pigeons--all gone next day. Shot a pair of Black Storks (1869).

_March 13th._--Last Woodc.o.c.k. Not one-fifth of the ducks now remain in marisma.

_March 19th._--Shot Scop's Owl in garden at Jerez.

_March 20th._--Observed Kentish and Lesser Ring Plovers, and shot Purple Heron. Flights of Cranes pa.s.sing north.

_March 24th._--Observed Short-toed Larks, and Spotless Starling; Black-headed Gulls still here, in full breeding-plumage. Ruff and Black-tailed G.o.dwits shot to-day.

_March 26th._--Ring-Ouzel (Sierra Bermeja), and in same district, Booted Eagle on 29th, Woodchat 30th, and Rock-Thrush on April 3rd.