Part 54

Upper plumage, neck, and breast dark lead-grey; sides, under tail-coverts, and thighs light yellowish red, with longitudinal, narrow, dark streaks; beak blue; cere and feet yellow; irides brown; claws black. Female: upper plumage and tail light red, with transverse spots and bars of dark brown; lower parts paler than in the male. Length, fifteen inches.

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The kestrel is the best known of the British hawks, not only because it is the most common species, but also because its peculiar preying habits bring it more into notice. It is resident and found throughout the United Kingdom, but undoubtedly possesses a partial migration, as it wholly disappears from some northern districts in the winter, and at the same season becomes more abundant in the southern counties.

When in quest of prey the kestrel has the habit of stopping suddenly in its rapid flight, and remaining for some time motionless in mid-air, suspended on its rapidly-beating wings, usually at a height of twenty or thirty yards above the surface. This habit, which has won for the species the appropriate name of windhover, is unique among British hawks. It is this peculiar aërial feat which makes the kestrel, when seen on the wing, so familiar a figure to country-people. The instant that the bird pauses in his swift-rushing flight you know that it is a kestrel, although it may be at such a distance as to appear a mere spot, a small moving shadow, against the sky. It has shorter wings than other falcons, and, by consequence, a more rapid and violent flight.

The kestrel preys chiefly on mice and field-voles; occasionally it takes a small bird, and carries off young, tender chicks, if they come in its way; but it certainly does not deserve its scientific name of alaudarius (a feeder on larks), which would have fitted the hobby better. It also preys on frogs and coleopterous insects. Selby relates that a kestrel was observed late one evening pursuing the cockchafers, dashing at them and seizing one in each claw, eating them in the air, and then returning to the charge. When on the wing the kestrel’s downward-gazing eyes are constantly on the look-out for the mice that lurk on the surface, and as mice are usually well concealed by the grass and herbage, the eyes must indeed be wonderfully sharp to detect them. After remaining suspended for some seconds, sometimes for half a minute, or longer, during which the bird watches the ground below, he dashes down upon his prey, or flies on without descending, as if satisfied that what had been taken for a mouse had turned out to be something different.

When thus hovering motionless the wings are seen to beat rapidly for a few seconds, then to become fixed and rigid for a moment or two, after which the beating motion is renewed. A short time ago I watched a kestrel thus hovering in the face of a very violent wind, and it struck me that this suspension of the wings’ motion in such circumstances was very extraordinary and hard to explain. One can understand that, even in the face of a violent gale, the bird is able to maintain its motionless position by sheer muscular power; but how happened it that in the short intervals, when the outspread wings became fixed and motionless, the bird was not instantly blown from its position?

In its breeding habits the kestrel, like the starling and jackdaw, has a partiality for towers and lofty ruins, and it also nests in holes in rocks and hollow trees. In woods it frequently takes possession of a disused nest of a crow or magpie. The eggs are four or five, blotched with dull red on a reddish white ground; and in many eggs the ground-colour is quite covered with red.

The kestrel, among British birds of prey, is a favourite with the ornithologist in virtue of its interesting habits; and it deserves to be equally esteemed by the farmer on account of its usefulness. It is, indeed, the only bird of diurnal habits that wages incessant warfare against the prolific and injurious mice, and thus carries on by day the task of keeping down a pest which those ‘feathered cats,’ the owls, so efficiently pursue at night.

The kestrel is easier to tame, and, when tame, more docile and affectionate, than most hawks, and many accounts have appeared in print of the bird and its ways in the domestic condition; but, to my mind, not one so interesting as the history of a pet kestrel kept a few years since by some friends of mine. The bird was young when it came into their hands, and was lovingly cared for, and made free of a large house and park, and of the whole wide country beyond. And it made good use of its liberty. As a rule, every morning it would fly away and disappear from sight until the evening, when, some time before sunset, it would return, dash in at the open door, and perch on some elevated situation--a cornice, or bust, or on the top of a large picture-frame. Invariably at dinner-time it flew to the dining-room, and would then settle on the shoulder of its master or mistress, to be fed with small scraps of meat. This pleasant state of things lasted for about three years, during which time the bird always roosted in, or somewhere near, the house, flew abroad by day, to return faithfully every evening to his loving human friends to be caressed, and fed, and made much of; and it might have continued several years longer, down to the present time, if the bird’s temper had not suffered a mysterious change. All at once, for no reason that anyone could guess, he became subject to the most extraordinary outbreaks of ill-temper, and in such a state he would, on his return from his daily wanderings abroad, violently attack some person in the room. Up till this time he had preferred his master and mistress to any other member of the household, and had shown an equal attachment to both; now he would single out one or other of these his best friends for his most violent attacks; and, very curiously, on the day when he attacked his master he would display the usual affection towards his mistress, but on the next day would reverse the process. And his hostility was not to be despised: rising up into the air to a good height, he would dash down with great force on to the obnoxious person’s head, often inflicting a lacerating blow with his claws. More than once, the lady told me, after one of these cutting, ungrateful blows on her forehead her face was bathed in blood.

It is pleasant to be able to relate that no feeling of resentment or alarm was excited by this behaviour on the part of the bird; that he was never deprived of his sweet liberty or treated with less gentleness than before. It was hoped and believed that he would outgrow the savage fit, and if he had confined his virulent attacks to his master and mistress it would have been well with him. Unfortunately for him, he attacked others who were made of poorer clay. One evening at dinner, the butler, while occupied with his duties, was struck savagely on the wrist by the kestrel. Like a well-trained servant, he did not wince or cry out, but marched stolidly round the table, pouring out wine, anxious only to conceal the blood that trickled from his wounds. But on the following day the bird was missing, and was never afterwards seen or heard of.

Osprey.

Pandion haliaëtus.

Feathers of the head and neck white with dark centres; on each side of the neck a streak of blackish brown, extending downwards; upper plumage generally deep brown; under parts white, tinged here and there with yellow, and on the breast marked with arrow-shaped spots; tail-feathers barred with dusky; cere and beak dark grey; iris yellow. Length, two feet.

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The osprey, like the sea-eagle, hen harrier, and kite, is one of the species that linger with us on the verge of extinction; and it may linger for many years, as in the case of the avocet, the black-tailed godwit, and the ruff, after these species had been reduced to a few breeding pairs; and, on the other hand, it may be gone to-morrow. That it will remain permanently as a member of the British avifauna is scarcely to be hoped.

The osprey, like the peregrine falcon and the short-eared owl, has an immense range, and inhabits Europe, Africa, the greater part of Asia, Japan, Formosa, the Australian region, New Guinea, and America. With us it appears in autumn as a migrant in small numbers; but the birds of the British race are now reduced to one or two pairs that breed annually in the Highlands of Scotland, and are strictly protected in their summer haunts.

The osprey feeds exclusively on fish, which it drops upon like a tern or gannet; but, falcon-like, it strikes with its feet, and, with its slippery prey gripped firmly in its sharp, crooked talons, it flies back to land.

The nest is usually placed in a tree, and is very large, formed of sticks, and lined with moss. Two or three eggs are laid, white or buff in ground-colour, blotched with rich chestnut-red, and purple-grey underlying marks.

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Besides the twelve species of the order Accipitres described, all of which breed in the British Islands, there are fourteen others, which, although described as British in the standard ornithological works, are only occasional or accidental visitors or stragglers to our shores. There are two vultures to be mentioned: the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), an inhabitant of Southern Europe, Africa, and Asia, once obtained in Ireland; and the Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), an inhabitant of Southern Europe and Africa, twice obtained. The next species is the marsh-harrier (Circus æruginosus), once abundant throughout Great Britain and Ireland, now, unhappily, extinct as a British species. This harrier, which was also called the moor-buzzard, is a graceful, handsome bird: the head creamy white; upper parts brown; beneath, buff, streaked with brown and chestnut; part of the wing and the tail silvery grey. In its buoyant flight and preying and nesting habits it resembles the hen harrier, but frequents fens and marshes instead of moors and uplands.

The rough-legged buzzard (Archibuteo lagopus) is an irregular visitor, chiefly in autumn and winter, from the northern parts of Europe. It differs from the common buzzard in having its legs feathered to the toes--hence the specific name, lagopus--rough-footed like a hare. This species is of more frequent occurrence in the British Islands than any other occasional visitor among the diurnal raptors, and in some years it appears in considerable numbers.

The spotted eagle (Aquila clanga), known to us as a rare occasional visitor, breeds in the forests of central and south-eastern Europe. More interesting to us is the goshawk (Astur palumbarius), since this fine bird of prey, although now a very rare straggler to Great Britain, is believed to have been formerly an indigenous species, and to have bred in Scotland down to the beginning of the present century. In form, colouring, and manner of preying it resembles the sparrow-hawk, but is nearly double the size of that bird, and flies at very much larger game.

The American goshawk has been included in the list of British birds on ‘somewhat slight evidence,’ as the author of the ‘Manual of British Birds’ says. The black kite (Milvus nigrans) is an African species, a summer visitant to Europe south of the Baltic, and has once been obtained in Great Britain. The swallow-tailed kite (Elanoïdes furcatus), an American species, which I once had the pleasure of seeing (not in a glass case, but sitting on a tree, and soaring in the air), has also been found as a straggler in this country. The honey-buzzard (Pernis apivorus) is a third species of hawk in this list which has disappeared from this country. Like the hobby and the osprey, it is (or was) a summer visitant, and has been known to breed in most English and Scottish counties from Hampshire to Aberdeenshire. Up to within four or five years ago a few pairs continued to return to us each summer, but these, too, have now vanished. This fine large hawk, in size the equal of the common buzzard, lived almost entirely on insect food, wasps and wild bees especially--hence its name of honey-buzzard.

The remaining species to be noticed are all true falcons: the gyrfalcon (Hierofalco gyrfalco), an inhabitant of arctic Scandinavia, only once obtained in this country; the Greenland falcon (Hierofalco candicans), a wanderer to this country from north-west America and Greenland; the Iceland falcon (Hierofalco islandicus), a wanderer from Iceland; the red-footed falcon (Tinnunculus vespertinus), an occasional visitor from the warm countries of Europe; and the lesser kestrel (Tinnunculus cenchris), a visitor from southern Europe, where it breeds.

Cormorant.

Phalacrocorax carbo.

Upper head and neck black, striated with hair-like white feathers, those on the occiput being elongated, and forming a crest in spring; throat white; gular pouch yellow; mantle black and bronze-brown; all the other parts black, except a white patch on the thigh, assumed early in spring and lost in summer; iris emerald-green. Female: larger than the male, brighter in colour, and with longer crest. Length, three feet.

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