Part 24

There is not in this song the faintest trace of plaintiveness, and of that heart-touching quality of tenderness which gives so great a charm to some of the warblers. It is pre-eminently cheerful; a song of summer and love and happiness of so contagious a spirit that to listen to it critically, as one would listen to the polished phrases of the nightingale, would be impossible.

The throstle is a very persistent singer: in spring and summer his loud carols may be heard from a tree-top at four o’clock or half-past three in the morning; throughout the day he sings at intervals, and again, more continuously, in the evening, when he keeps up an intermittent flow of melody until dark. His evening music always seems his best, but the effect is probably due to the comparative silence and the witching aspect of nature at that hour, when the sky is still luminous, and the earth beneath the dusky green foliage lies in deepest shadow.

So far only the music of the throstle has been considered; but in the case of this bird the music is nearly everything. When we think of the throstle, we have the small sober-coloured figure that skulks in the evergreens, and its life-habits, less in our minds than the overmastering musical sounds with which he fills the green places of the earth from early spring until the great silence of July and August falls on nature.

The song-thrush is a common species in suitable localities throughout the British Islands, being rarest in the north of Scotland. He is found in this country all the year round, but it was discovered many years ago, by Professor Newton, that a very limited number of birds remain to winter with us. Probably they migrate by night, as the fieldfare and redwing are known to do, and, being much less gregarious than those birds, come and go without exciting attention. The fact remains that, where they are abundant in summer, a time comes in autumn when they mysteriously vanish. One or two individuals may remain where twenty or thirty existed previously; and if they only shifted their quarters, as the missel-thrushes do in some parts of the country, they would be found in considerable numbers during the winter in some districts. But the disappearance is general. I am inclined to think that this thrush migration is not so general as Professor Newton believes, and that the birds that leave our shores are mainly those that breed in the northern parts of the country. During the exceptionally severe winter of 1894–5 the thrushes that remained with us suffered more than most species, and in the following spring I found that the song-thrush had become rare throughout the southern half of England.

FIG. 19.--THROSTLE’S NEST.

Nesting begins in March, the site selected being the centre of a hedge, or a thick holly or other evergreen bush, or a mass of ivy against a wall or tree. The nest is built of dry grass, small twigs, and moss, and plastered inside with mud, or clay, or cow-dung, and lined with rotten wood. This is a strange material for a nest to be lined with, and is not used by any other bird; the fragments of rotten wood are wetted when used, and, being pressed smoothly down, form a cork-like lining, very hard when dry. Four or five eggs are laid, pale greenish blue in ground-colour, thickly marked with small deep brown spots, almost black. Two, and sometimes three, broods are reared in the season.

During the day, when not singing, the thrush is a silent bird; in the evening he becomes noisy, and chirps and chatters and screams excitedly before settling to roost.

Insects of all kinds, earthworms, and slugs and snails, are eaten by the song-thrush. The snail-shells are broken by being struck vigorously against a stone; and as the same stone is often used for the purpose, quantities of newly broken shells are sometimes found scattered round it. He is a great hunter after earthworms, and it would appear from his actions that the sense of hearing rather than that of sight is relied on to discover the worm. For the worm, however near the surface, is still under it, and usually a close bed of grass covers the ground; yet you will see a thrush hopping about a lawn stand motionless for two or three seconds, then hop rapidly to a spot half a yard away, and instantly plunge his beak into the earth and draw out a worm. The supposition is that he has heard it moving in the earth. He is also a fruit and berry eater, both wild and cultivated.

Redwing.

Turdus iliacus.

Upper parts olive-brown; a broad white streak above the eye; under parts white, with numerous oblong, dusky spots; under wing-coverts and flanks orange-red. Length, eight and a half inches.

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In size and general appearance the redwing resembles the song-thrush. Like the fieldfare, he is a winter visitor from northern Europe, arriving a little earlier on the east coast, and differing from his fellow-migrants in being less hardy. He is more of an insect-eater, and is incapable of thriving on berries and seeds; hence in very severe seasons he is the greater sufferer, and sometimes perishes in considerable numbers when, in the same localities, the fieldfare is not sensibly affected. Nor is he of so vagrant a habit as the larger thrush: year after year he returns to the same place to spend the winter months, feeding in the same meadows, and roosting in the same plantations, until the return of spring calls him to the north. He is partial to cultivated districts where there are woods and grass-lands, and passes the daylight hours in meadows and moist grounds near water, returning regularly in the evening to the roosting-trees.

At all seasons the redwing is gregarious, and in its summer haunts many birds are found nesting in close proximity. A good deal of interest attaches to the subject of its song, which Linnæus thought ‘delightful,’ and comparable to that of the nightingale--an opinion ridiculed by Professor Newton in his edition of Yarrell. Richard Jefferies, who found the redwing breeding and heard its summer song in England, describes its strain as ‘sweet and loud--far louder than the old, familiar notes of the thrush. The note rang out clear and high, and somehow sounded strangely unfamiliar among English meadows and English oaks.’

Fieldfare.

Turdus pilaris.

Head, nape, and lower part of the back dark ash-grey; upper part of the back and wing-coverts chestnut-brown; a white line above the eye; chin and throat yellow streaked with black; breast reddish brown spotted with black; belly, flanks, and lower tail-coverts white, the last two spotted with greyish brown; under wing-coverts white. Length, ten inches.

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In size and colouring, more especially in the spotted under parts, the fieldfare comes near enough to the missel-thrush to be sometimes confounded with it. Thus, flocks of missel-thrushes seen in autumn are sometimes mistaken for fieldfares that have come at an exceptionally early date to warn the inhabitants of these islands that the winter will be a severe one. The fieldfare is slightly less in size than the missel-thrush, and has a more variegated plumage, and when seen close at hand is a handsome bird.

He is one of the latest winter visitors to arrive, seldom appearing before the end of October. The return migration takes place at the end of April, or later; flocks of fieldfares have been known to remain in this country to the end of May, and even to the first week in June. Like the redwing, he is gregarious all the year round; in his summer home in the Norwegian forests he exists in communities, and the nests are built near each other. The migration is usually performed by night, and the harsh cries of the travellers may be heard in the dark sky, on the east coasts of England and Scotland, at the end of October, and in November. From the time of their arrival until they leave us they are seen in flocks of twenty or thirty to several hundreds of individuals. They do not, like the redwings, attach themselves to certain localities, but wander incessantly from place to place, ranging over the entire area of Great Britain and Ireland. Owing to this vagrancy, the fieldfare is an extremely familiar bird to the countryman, and invariably its first appearance, and harsh yet joyous clamour, as of jays screaming and magpies chattering in concert, call up a sudden image of winter--cold, brief days and a snow-whitened earth, and memories of that early period in life when the great seasonal changes impress the mind so deeply.

In open weather the fieldfares seek their food in meadows and pastures, also in the fields. Unlike the missel-thrushes, that move about in all directions over the ground, the fieldfares when feeding all move in the same direction. In like manner, when the flock repairs to a tree, the birds on their perches are all seen facing one way--a very pretty spectacle. When their feeding-grounds are frozen, or covered with snow, they go to the hedges and devour the hips and haws, and any other wild fruit that remains ungathered; if severe weather continues, they take their departure to more southern lands. Their flight is strong, easy, and slightly undulating, and before settling to feed the flock often wheels gracefully about over the field for some time.

The song of the fieldfare, described by Seebohm as a ‘wild desultory warble,’ uttered on the wing, is not known to us in this country--it is a song of summer and of love; but in genial weather, when the birds are faring well, they often burst out into a concert of agreeable sounds just after alighting in a tree.

In the evening when settling to roost they are extremely noisy like most thrushes, and their cries may be heard until dark.

Blackbird.

Turdus merula.

Black; bill and orbits of the eyes orange-yellow. Female: sooty brown. Length, ten inches.

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Among the feathered inhabitants of these islands there is scarcely a more familiar figure than that of the blackbird. Not only is he very generally diffused, and abundant in all suitable localities, but he is attached to human habitations--a bird of the garden, lawn, and shrubberies. His music is much to us, his beautiful mellow voice being unique in character in this country. But, more than his voice, his love of gardens and their produce, and whatever else serves to make him better known than most birds, is his blackness. Excepting the crows, he is the only British bird in the passerine order with a wholly black plumage; and his bright yellow bill increases the effect of the blackness, and, like a golden crown, gives him a strange beauty. Like his companion of the garden and shrubbery, the throstle, he is a skulker, and on the least alarm takes shelter under the thickest evergreen within reach. When disturbed from his hiding-place he rushes out impetuously with a great noise, making the place resound with his loud, clear, ringing and musical chuckle. But he is not so inveterate a skulker and in love with the shade as the other. You will sometimes find him on hillsides and open moors, or nesting in the scanty tufts of sea-campion on rocky islands where he has for only neighbour the rock-pipit. But above all situations he prefers the garden and well-planted ground, and in such places is most abundant. His food is the same as that of the throstle, and is taken in much the same way: he listens for the earthworms working near the surface of the ground, and hammers the snails against a stone to break the shells. In the fruit season he is very troublesome to the gardener, and greedily devours strawberries, cherries, currants, gooseberries and mulberries.