Part 36

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Two beautiful British birds, unfortunately not indigenous nor regular in their visits to our country, may be mentioned in this place. They represent two families: Oriolidæ, which follows Motacillidæ (wagtails and pipits); and Ampelidæ, which comes after Laniidæ (shrikes). One is the golden oriole (Oriolus galbulus), a rare straggler to England on migration from Central and Southern Europe. It has been known to breed in the southern counties, and, if protected, would probably become an annual visitant. The other species is the waxwing (Ampelis garrulus), an irregular visitor in winter, sometimes in considerable numbers, from the arctic circle.

Red-backed Shrike.

Lanius collurio.

Frontal band, lores, and ear-coverts black; crown and nape grey; mantle chestnut-brown; quills dark brown edged with rufous; tail-coverts grey; tail-feathers white at their bases, the other portion and the whole of the two central ones black; under parts rose-buff; bill and feet black. Length, seven inches.

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The shrike is distinguished among perching birds by its sharply hooked, toothed, rapacious beak, and its hawk-like habit of preying on small birds, mice, shrews, frogs, and lizards. The extraordinary custom it has of impaling its victims on thorns has won for it the unpleasant name of butcher-bird, by which it is best known to country-people. Some naturalists have expressed the opinion that the shrike does not often attack small birds; and this would seem a reasonable view to take when we consider that the bird is no bigger than a skylark. But it is impossible to follow with the eye all the wanderings and the actions of all kinds that go to make the day of any wild bird; we really see only a very small part of the killing that goes on. The little feathered butcher is small in size, but his spirit is bold, and his taste for flesh not to be doubted. In a question of this kind I believe our slight intermittent observation is less to be depended on than the reputation--if such a word may be used in this connection--which the shrike bears among his feathered fellow-creatures. He is by them reputed dangerous, a bird of prey to be avoided, or at least regarded with extreme suspicion. We are accustomed to say that we do not know a man until we come to live with him; and the small birds live with the shrike, and therefore know him best.

The red-backed shrike is a summer visitor, arriving in this country early in April, and is not an uncommon species in England and Wales, being most numerous in the southern counties; but its range does not extend to Ireland, and in North Britain it is only known as a straggler. It inhabits the open borders of woods, rough commons, and high hedges, and has the habit of sitting conspicuously perched, often for an hour at a stretch, on the summit of an isolated bush or low tree, or on a fence or any other elevated stand, where it has a pretty appearance. From its perch it watches for its prey, but is by no means a motionless and depressed-looking watcher, like the flycatcher: its movements on its stand, as it turns its head from side to side and jerks and fans its tail, frequently uttering its low, percussive, chat-like chirp or call-note, give the impression of a creature keenly alive to everything passing around it. The shrike is, in fact, attentively watching air, earth, and the surrounding herbage and bushes for a victim, which he captures by a sudden dart, taking it by surprise. Besides small vertebrates, he preys on various large insects--beetles, grasshoppers, wasps, bees, &c.--seizing them in the air as they fly past, or dropping upon them on the ground. He often devours the insects captured on the spot, then returns to his stand; but he also has a favourite thorn-bush or tree to which he is accustomed to convey many of the creatures he takes, to impale them on thorns or fix them on forked twigs. He has the habit of plucking birds before devouring them; and it is doubtless easier for him to pluck a small bird and pull anything he catches to pieces when fixed on a thorn, for, being without crooked claws, he is incapable of grasping his victim and holding it steady while operating on it. This is one of those instincts which simulate reason very closely. The number of remains of victims sometimes found suspended to a butcher-bird’s tree shows that he is occasionally very destructive to small birds. In a case recorded in the ‘Zoologist’ (1875, p. 4723), bodies of the great tit, blue tit, long-tailed tit, robin, hedge-sparrow, and young of blackbirds and thrushes, were found. The indigestible portions swallowed--bones, fur, and wing-cases of large beetles--are cast up in pellets.

In the pairing season the shrike utters at times a chirruping song, not unlike the attempted singing of a sparrow in sound. The nest is large, and placed in a thick bush or hedge, and is composed outwardly of stalks, and inside of fibrous roots and moss, lined with fine bents and a little horsehair. Four to six eggs are laid; these vary a good deal, the ground being pale green, pale buff, cream or pale salmon-colour, spotted and blotched, principally at the large end, with reddish brown and purplish grey.

After leaving the nest the young keep company with their parents until their departure in September and October.

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There are four more species of Lanius in the list of British birds, all stragglers--the great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor), a breeder in Central Europe; Pallas’s great grey shrike (Lanius major), from North Scandinavia and Siberia; the lesser grey shrike (Lanius minor), from Central and Southern Europe; the woodchat (Lanius pomeranus), also from Central and Southern Europe.

Spotted Flycatcher.

Muscicapa grisola.

Upper parts ash-brown; feathers of the head marked with central dark line; under parts white, the sides marked with longitudinal brown streaks; flanks tinged with red. Length, five and a half inches.

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The spotted flycatcher is one of our commonest summer migrants, and at the same time one of the least remarked. He is a late comer, arriving about the middle of May; but he does not come after the leaves are out, to conceal himself among them, after the manner of the wood-wren and of other small insect-eaters. From the day of his arrival he is exposed to sight in the places he frequents--parks, skirts of woods, orchards, gardens, and the borders of fields and meadows. The area inhabited by each bird, or pair, is very circumscribed, and contains a few favourite perching-places, which are regularly occupied at different hours of the day. The perching-place is on a projecting branch, or, better still, a dead branch of a bush or tree, a wire fence, or a paling or gatepost. He comes near houses, and he may have a stand within twenty or thirty yards of the door, from which those who come and go may have him full in sight for several hours each day. But little or no notice is taken of him. And it is not strange, for of all our birds he is the least attractive, in his pale, obscure plumage, as he sits silent and motionless, listless and depressed in appearance, showing neither alarm nor curiosity when regarded. Seen thus he is like a silent grey ghost of a little dead bird returned to haunt the sunlight. Despite this listless appearance he is keenly alive to outward things. As the motionless heron watches the water, with the creatures that move like vague shadows in it, the flycatcher watches the air and the living things, minute and swift-winged, that inhabit it. At intervals he quits his perch and makes a dash at some passing insect, which he captures, his mandibles closing on it with an audible snap; then returns to his stand and his watching once more.

His call-note is a feeble chirp, two or three times repeated; and he is said to have a song, which few have heard, composed of a few rambling notes in a low tone.

The flycatcher begins to build soon after its arrival, and a favourite site for the nest is in the ivy growing against a wall; nests are also made in holes in walls and in the trunks of trees, on horizontal branches, and in a variety of situations. The nest is composed of dry grass and moss, mixed with a few feathers, and lined with rootlets and horsehair. Five or six eggs are laid; they are bluish white or pale green in ground-colour, clouded, blotched and spotted with reddish brown.

Flycatchers return to the same nesting-place year after year. One brood only is reared, and the birds leave us by the third week in September.

Pied Flycatcher.

Muscicapa atricapilla.

Upper parts and tail black; wings black, with the central coverts white; scapulars edged with white; under parts white. Female: greyish brown instead of black; the white dingy; the three lateral tail-feathers edged with white. Length, five inches.

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The pied flycatcher is comparatively a rare bird, and is unknown to a great majority of the inhabitants of this country, being restricted to a few localities in the north of England and the south of Scotland, and to some parts of North Wales, and the English counties bordering on Wales. In its nesting and feeding habits, and its partiality for orchards and gardens, it is like the spotted flycatcher; but it arrives earlier than that species, usually during the last week in April or the first week in May. Its black-and-white plumage gives it a very different and a much more attractive appearance. The only other point in which the two species differ greatly is in the number and colour of the eggs. Those of the pied flycatcher number from five to eight, and are very beautiful, being of a uniform delicate pale blue, and unspotted.

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A third species, the red-breasted flycatcher (Musicapa parva), has been included in the list of stragglers from Central and Eastern Europe to this country.

Swallow.