Part 17

So great is the number of species of warbler which either visit India every winter or remain always in the country, so small and insignificant in appearance are these birds, so greatly do they resemble one another, and so similar are their habits, that even the expert ornithologist cannot identify the majority of them unless, having the skin in one hand and a key to the warblers in the other, he sets himself thinking strenuously. For these reasons I pay but little attention to the warbler clan. Usually when I meet one of them, I am content to set him down as a warbler and let him depart in peace. But I make a few exceptions in the case of those that I may perhaps call warblers of distinction--warblers that stand out from among their fellows on account of their architectural skill, their peculiar habits, or unusual colouring. The famous tailor-bird (Orthotomus sartorius) is the best known of the warblers distinguished on account of architectural skill. As a warbler of peculiar habits, I may cite the ashy wren-warbler (Prinia socialis), which, as it flits about among the bushes, makes a curious snapping noise, the cause of which has not yet been satisfactorily determined. As warblers of unusual colouring, the flycatcher-warblers are pre-eminent. In appearance these resemble tits or white-eyes rather than the typical quaker-like warblers.

Cryptolopha xanthoschista and Hodgson's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler are the names that ornithologists have given to a very small bird. But, diminutive though he be, he is heard, if not seen, more often than any other bird in all parts of the Western Himalayas. It is impossible for a human being to visit any station between Naini Tal and Murree without remarking this warbler. It is no exaggeration to state that the bird's voice is heard in every second tree. Oates writes of the flycatcher-warblers, "they are not known to have any song." This is true or the reverse, according to the interpretation placed on the word "song." If song denotes only sweet melodies such as those of the shama and the nightingale, then indeed flycatcher-warblers are not singers. Nevertheless they incessantly make a joyful noise. I can vouch for the fact that their lay is heard all day long from March to October. Before attempting to describe the familiar sound, I deem it prudent to recall to the mind of the reader the notice that once appeared in a third-rate music-hall:--"The audience are respectfully requested not to throw things at the pianist. He is doing his best." To say that this warbler emits incessantly four or five high-pitched, not very musical notes, is to give but a poor rendering of his vocal efforts, but it is, I fear, the best I can do for him. He is small, so that the volume of sound he emits is not great, but it is penetrating. Even as the cheery lay of the Otocompsa bulbuls forms the dominant note of the bird chorus in our southern hill stations, so does the less melodious but not less cheerful call of the flycatcher-warblers run as an undercurrent through the melody of the feathered choir of the Himalayas.

In what follows I shall speak of Hodgson's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler as our hero, because I shrink from constant repetition of his double double-barrelled name. I should prefer to give him Jerdon's name, the white-browed warbler, but for the fact that there are a score or more other warblers with white eyebrows. Our hero is considerably smaller than a sparrow, being only a fraction over four inches in length, and of this over one-third is composed of tail. The head and neck are grey, the former being set off by a cream-coloured eyebrow. Along the middle of the head runs a band of pale grey; this "mesial coronal band," as Oates calls it, is far more distinct in some specimens than in others. The remainder of the upper plumage is olive green, and the lower parts are bright yellow. Coloured plate, No. XX, in Hume and Henderson's Lahore to Yarkand, contains a very good reproduction of the bird. The upper picture on the plate represents our hero, the lower one depicting an allied species, Brook's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler (C. Jerdoni). It is necessary to state this because the book in question was written in 1873, since when, needless to say, the scientific names of most birds have undergone changes. The plate in question also demonstrates the slenderness of the foundation upon which specific differences among warblers rest.

Our hero is an exceedingly active little bird. He is ever on the move, and so rapid are his movements that to watch him for any length of time through field-glasses is no mean feat. He and his mate, with perhaps a few friends, hop about from leaf to leaf looking for quarry, large and small. The manner in which he stows away a caterpillar an inch long is a sight for the gods!

Sometimes two or three of these warblers attach themselves, temporarily at any rate, to one of those flocks, composed mainly of various species of tits and nuthatches, which form so well-marked a feature of all wooded hills in India. Hodgson's warblers are pugnacious little creatures. Squabbles are frequent. It is impossible to watch two or three of them for long without seeing what looks like one tiny animated golden fluff ball pursuing another from branch to branch and even from tree to tree.

The breeding season lasts from March to June. The nest is globular in shape, made of moss or coarse grass, and lined with some soft material, such as wool. The entrance is usually at one side. The nest is placed on a sloping bank at the foot of a bush, so that it is likely to escape observation unless one sees the bird flying to it. Three or four glossy white eggs are laid. Many years ago Colonel Marshall recorded the case of a nest at Naini Tal "at the side of a narrow glen with a northern aspect and about four feet above the pathway, close to a spring from which my bhisti daily draws water, the bird sitting fearlessly while passed and repassed by people going down the glen within a foot or two of the nest." At the same station I recently had a very different experience. Some weeks ago I noticed one of these warblers fly with a straw in its beak to a place on a steep bank under a small bush. I could not see what it was doing there, but in a few seconds it emerged with the bill empty. Shortly afterwards it returned with another straw. Having seen several pieces of building material carried to the spot, I descended the bank to try to find the nest. I could find nothing; the nest was evidently only just commenced. I then went back to the spot from which I had been watching the birds, but they did not return again. I had frightened them away. Individual birds of the same species sometimes differ considerably in their behaviour at the nesting season. Some will desert the nest on the slightest provocation, while others will cling to it in the most quixotic manner. It is never safe to dogmatise regarding the behaviour of birds. No sooner does an ornithologist lay down a law than some bird proceeds to break it.

THE SPOTTED FORKTAIL

"Striking" is, in my opinion, the correct adjective to apply to the spotted forktail (Henicurus maculatus). Like the paradise flycatcher, it is a bird which cannot fail to obtrude itself upon the most unobservant person, and, once seen, it is never likely to be forgotten. I well remember the first occasion on which I saw a spotted forktail; I was walking down a Himalayan path, alongside of which a brook was flowing, when suddenly from a rock in mid-stream there arose a black-and-white apparition, that flitted away, displaying a long tail fluttering behind it. The plumage of this magnificent bird has already been described.

As was stated above, this species is often called the hill-wagtail. The name is not a particularly good one, because wagtails proper occur in the Himalayas.

The forktail, however, has many of the habits of the true wagtail. I was on the point of calling it a glorified wagtail, but I refrain. Surely it is impossible to improve upon a wagtail.

In India forktails are confined to the Himalayas and the mountainous parts of Burma.

There are no fewer than eight Indian species, but I propose to confine myself to the spotted forktail. This is essentially a bird of mountain streams. It is never found far from water, but occurs at all altitudes up to the snow-line, so that, as Jerdon says, it is one of the characteristic adjuncts of Himalayan scenery. Indeed I know of few things more enjoyable than to sit, when the sun is shining, on the bank of a well-shaded burn, and, soothed by the soft melody of running water, watch the forktails moving nimbly over the boulders and stones with fairy tread, half-flight half-hop.

Forktails continually wag the tail, just as wagtails do, but not with quite the same vigour, possibly because there is so much more to wag!

Like wagtails, they do not object to their feet being wet, indeed they love to stand in running water.

Forktails often seek their quarry among the dead leaves that become collected in the various angles in the bed of the stream; when so doing they pick up each leaf, turn it over, and cast it aside just as the seven sisters do. They seem to like to work upstream when seeking for food. Jerdon states that he does not remember ever having seen a forktail perch; nevertheless the bird frequently flies on to a branch overhanging the brook, and rests there, slowly vibrating its forked tail as if in deep meditation.

Spotted forktails are often seen near the places where the dhobis wash clothes by banging them violently against rocks, hence the name dhobi-birds, by which they are called by many Europeans. The little forktail does not haunt the washerman's ghat for the sake of human companionship, for it is a bird that usually avoids man. The explanation is probably that the shallow pool in which the dhobi works and grunts is well adapted to the feeding habits of the forktail. I may here remark that in the Himalayas the washerman usually pursues his occupation in a pool in a mountain stream overhung with oaks and rhododendron trees, amid scenery that would annually attract thousands of visitors did it happen to be within a hundred miles of London. Not that the prosaic dhobi cares two straws for the scenery--nor, I fear, does the pretty little forktail. As I have already hinted, forktails are rather shy birds. If they think they are being watched they become restless and stand about on boulders, uttering a prolonged plaintive note, which is repeated at intervals of a few seconds. When startled they fly off, emitting a loud scream. But they are pugnacious to others of their kind, especially at the breeding season. I once saw a pair attack and drive away from the vicinity of their nest a Himalayan whistling-thrush (Myiophoneus temmincki)--another bird that frequents hill-streams, and a near relation of the Malabar whistling-thrush or idle schoolboy.

The nursery of the forktail, although quite a large cup-shaped structure, is not easy to discover; it blends well with its surroundings, and the birds certainly will not betray its presence if they know they are being watched. The nest is, to use Hume's words, "sometimes hidden in a rocky niche, sometimes on a bare ledge of rock overhung by drooping ferns and sometimes on a sloping bank, at the root of some old tree, in a very forest of club moss." I once spent several afternoons in discovering a forktail's nest which I was positive existed and contained young, because I had repeatedly seen the parents carrying grubs in the bill. My difficulty was that the stream to which the birds had attached themselves was in a deep ravine, the sides of which were so steep that no animal save a cat could have descended it without making a noise and being seen by the birds. Eventually I decorated my topi with bracken fronds, after the fashion of 'Arry at Burnham Beeches on the August bank holiday. Thus arrayed, I descended to the stream and hid myself in the hollow stump of a tree, near the place where I knew the nest must be. By crouching down and drawing some foliage about me, I was able to command a small stretch of the stream. My arrival was of course the signal for loud outcries on the part of the parent forktails. However, after I had been squatting about ten minutes in my cache, to the delight of hundreds of winged insects, the suspicions of the forktails subsided, and the birds began collecting food, working their way upstream. They came nearer and nearer, until one of them passed out of sight, although it was within 10 feet of me. It was thus evident that the nest was so situated that what remained of the tree-trunk obstructed my view of it. This was annoying, but I had one resource left, namely, to sit patiently until the sound of chirping told me that a parent bird was at the nest with food.

This sound was not long in coming, and the moment I heard it, up I jumped like a Jack-in-the-box, but without the squeak, in time to see a forktail leave a spot on the bank about 6 feet above the water. I was surprised, as I had the day before examined that place without discovering the nest. However, I went straight to the spot from which the forktail had flown, and found the nest after a little searching. The bank was steep and of uneven surface. Here and there a slab of stone projected from it and pointed downwards. Into a natural hollow under one of these projecting slabs a nest consisting of a large mass of green moss and liver-worts had been wedged. From the earth above the slab grew some ferns, which partially overhung the nest. Across the nest, a few inches in front of it, ran a moss-covered root. From out of the mossy walls of the nest there emerged a growing plant. All these things served to divert attention from the nest, bulky though this was, its outer walls being over 2 inches thick. The inner wall was thin--a mere lining to the earth. The nest contained four young birds, whose eyes were barely open. The young ones were covered with tiny parasites, which seemed quite ready for a change of diet, for immediately after picking up one of the young forktails, I found some thirty or forty of these parasites crawling over my hand!

There is luck in finding birds' nests, as in everything else. A few days after I had discovered the one above mentioned, I came upon another without looking for it. When I was walking along a hill-stream a forktail flew out from the bank close beside me, and a search of thirty seconds sufficed to reveal a well-concealed nest containing three eggs. These are much longer than they are broad. They are cream-coloured, mottled and speckled with tiny red markings.

THE NEST OF THE GREY-WINGED OUZEL

On several occasions this year (1910) I have listened with unalloyed pleasure to the sweet blackbird-like song of the grey-winged ouzel (Merula boulboul) at Naini Tal--a station in the Himalayas, consisting of over a hundred bungalows dotted on the well-wooded hillsides that tower 1200 feet above a mountain lake that is itself 6000 feet above the level of the sea. On the northern slope of one of the mountains on the north side of the Naini Tal lake, is a deep ravine, through which runs a little stream. The sides of the ravine are covered with trees--mainly rhododendron, oak, and holly.

On July 1st I went 1000 feet down this ravine to visit the nest of a spotted forktail (Henicurus maculatus) which I had discovered a week previously. Having duly inspected the blind, naked, newly-hatched forktails, I went farther down the stream to try to see something of a pair of red-billed blue magpies (Urocissa occipitalis).

The magpies were not at home that afternoon, and while waiting for them I caught sight of a bird among the foliage lower down the hill. At first I took this for a Himalayan whistling-thrush. I followed its movements through my field-glasses, and saw it alight on part of the gnarled and twisted trunk of a rhododendron tree. Closer inspection showed that the bird was a grey-winged ouzel. He had apparently caught sight of me, for his whole attitude was that of a suspicious bird with a nest in the vicinity. He remained motionless for several minutes.

As I watched him a ray of sunlight penetrated the thick foliage and fell upon the part of the tree where he was standing, and revealed to me that he was on the edge of a cunningly-placed nest.

The trunk of the rhododendron tree bifurcated about 20 feet above the ground; one limb grew nearly upright, the other almost horizontally for a few feet, and then broke up into five branches, or, rather, gave off four upwardly-directed branches, each as thick as a man's wrist, and then continued its horizontal direction, greatly diminished in size.

The four upwardly-directed branches took various directions, each being considerably twisted, and one actually curling round its neighbour. At the junction of the various branches lay the nest, resting on the flat surface, much as a large, shallow pill-box might rest in the half-closed palm of the hand of a man whose fingers were rugged and twisted with years of hard toil.

The upper part of the trunk was covered by a thick growth of green moss, and from it two or three ferns sprang.

As the exterior of the nest consisted entirely of green moss, it blended perfectly with its surroundings. From below it could not possibly have been seen. When I caught sight of it I was standing above it at the top of the ravine, and even then I should probably have missed seeing it, had not that ray of sunlight fallen on the nest and imparted a golden tint to the fawn-coloured plumage of the nestlings which almost completely filled the nest cup.