Part 6

The first spring I resided in Surrey I was fairly astonished and delighted at the bird life which proclaimed itself everywhere. The bevies of chiffchaffs and willow wrens which came to the thickets in the furze, the chorus of thrushes and blackbirds, the chaffinches in the elms, the greenfinches in the hedges, wood-pigeons and turtle-doves in the copses, tree-pipits about the oaks in the cornfields; every bush, every tree, almost every clod, for the larks were so many, seemed to have its songster. As for nightingales, I never knew so many in the most secluded country.

There are more round about London than in all the woodlands I used to ramble through. When people go into the country they really leave the birds behind them. It was the same, I found, after longer observation, with birds perhaps less widely known as with those universally recognised--such, for instance, as shrikes. The winter when the cry was raised that there were no birds, that the blackbirds and thrushes had left the lawns and must be dead, and how wicked it would be to take a nest next year, I had not the least, difficulty in finding plenty of them.

They had simply gone to the water meadows, the brooks, and moist places generally. Every locality where running water kept the ground moist and permitted of movement among the creeping things which form these birds' food, was naturally resorted to. Thrushes and blackbirds, although they do not pack--that is, regularly fly in flocks--undoubtedly migrate when pressed by weather.

They are well known to arrive on the east coast from Norway in numbers as the cold increases. I see no reason why we may not suppose that in very severe and continued frost the thrushes and blackbirds round London fly westwards towards the milder side of the island. It seems to me that when, some years since, I used to stroll round the water meadows in a western county for snipes in frosty weather, the hedges were full of thrushes and blackbirds--quite full of them.

Now, though there were thrushes and blackbirds about the brooks by London last winter, there were few in the hedges generally. Had they, then, flown westwards? It is my belief that they had. They had left the hard-bound ground about London for the softer and moister lands farther west. They had crossed the rain-line. When frost prevents access to food in the east, thrushes and blackbirds move westwards, just as the fieldfares and redwings do.

That the fieldfares and redwings do so I can say with confidence, because, as they move in large flocks, there is no difficulty in tracing the direction in which they are going. They all went west when the severe weather began. On the southern side of London, at least in the districts I am best acquainted with, there was hardly a fieldfare or redwing to be seen for weeks and even months. Towards spring they came back, flying east for Norway. As thrushes and blackbirds move singly, and not with concerted action, their motions cannot be determined with such precision, but all the facts are in favour of the belief that they also went west.

That they were killed by the frost and snow I utterly refuse to credit. Some few, no doubt, were--I saw some greatly enfeebled by starvation--but not the mass. If so many had been destroyed their bodies must have been seen when there was no foliage to hide them, and no insects to quickly play the scavenger as in summer. Some were killed by cats; a few perhaps by rats, for in sharp winters they go down into the ditches, and I saw a dead redwing, torn and disfigured, at the mouth of a drain during the snow, where it might have been fastened on by a rat. But it is quite improbable that thousands died as was supposed.

Thrushes and blackbirds are not like rooks. Rooks are so bound by tradition and habit that they very rarely quit the locality where they were reared. Their whole lives are spent in the neighbourhood of the nest, trees, and the woods where they sleep. They may travel miles during the day, but they always come back to roost. These are the birds that suffer the most during long frosts and snows. Unable to break the chain that binds them to one spot, they die rather than desert it. A miserable time, indeed, they had of it that winter, but I never heard that any one proposed feeding the rooks, the very birds that wanted it most.

Swallows, again, were declared by many to be fewer. It is not at all unlikely that they were fewer. The wet season was unfavourable to them; still a good deal of the supposed absence of swallows may be through the observer not looking for them in the right place. If not wheeling in the sky, look for them over the water, the river, or great ponds; if not there, look along the moist fields or shady woodland meadows. They vary their haunts with the state of the atmosphere, which causes insects to be more numerous in one place at one time, and presently in another.

A very wet season is more fatal than the sharpest frost; it acts by practically reducing the births, leaving the ordinary death-rate to continue. Consequently, as the old birds die, there are none (or fewer) to supply their places. Once more let me express the opinion that there are as many small birds round London as in the country, and no measure is needed to protect the species at large. Protection, if needed, is required for the individual. Sweep the roads and lanes clear of the birdcatchers, but do not prevent a boy from taking a nest in the open fields or commons. If it were made illegal to sell full-grown birds, half the evil would be stopped at once if the law were enforced. The question is full of difficulties. To prevent or attempt to prevent the owner of a garden from shooting the bullfinches or blackbirds and so on that steal his fruit, or destroy his buds, is absurd. It is equally absurd to fine--what twaddle!--a lad for taking a bird's egg. The only point upon which I am fully clear is that the birdcatcher who takes birds on land not his own or in his occupation, on public property, as roads, wastes, commons, and so forth, ought to be rigidly put down. But as for the small birds as a mass, I am convinced that they will never cease out of the land.

It is not easy to progress far along this road, because every bird suggests so many reflections and recollections. Upon approaching the rising ground at Ewell green plovers or peewits become plentiful in the cornfields. In spring and early summer the flocks break up to some extent, and the scattered parties conduct their nesting operations in the pastures or on the downs. In autumn they collect together again, and flocks of fifty or more are commonly seen. Now and then a much larger flock comes down into the plain, wheeling to and fro, and presently descending upon an arable field, where they cover the ground.

NIGHTINGALE ROAD

The wayside is open to all, and that which it affords may be enjoyed without fee; therefore it is that I return to it so often. It is a fact that common hedgerows often yield more of general interest than the innermost recesses of carefully guarded preserves, which by day are frequently still, silent, and denuded of everything, even of game; nor can flowers flourish in such thick shade, nor where fir-needles cover the ground.

By the same wayside of which I have already spoken there is a birch copse, through which runs a road open to foot passengers, but not to wheel traffic, and also a second footpath. From these a little observation will show that almost all the life and interest of the copse is at, or near, the edge, and can be readily seen without trespassing a single yard. Sometimes, when it is quiet in the evening and the main highway is comparatively deserted, a hare comes stealing down the track through the copse, and after lingering there awhile crosses the highway into the stubble on the other side.

In one of these fields, just opposite the copse, a covey of partridges had their rendezvous, and I watched them from the road, evening after evening, issue one by one, calling as they appeared from a breadth of mangolds. Their sleeping-place seemed to be about a hundred yards from the wayside. Another arable field just opposite is bounded by the road with iron wire or railing, instead of a hedge, and the low mound in which the stakes are fixed swarmed one summer with ant-hills full of eggs, and a slight rustle in the corn as I approached told where the parent bird had just led her chicks from the feast to shelter.

Passing into the copse by the road, which is metalled but weed-grown from lack of use, the grasshoppers sing from the sward at the sides, but the birds are silent as the summer ends. Pink striped bells of convolvulus flower over the flints and gravel, the stones nearly hidden by their runners and leaves; yellow toadflax or eggs and bacon grew here till a weeding took place, since which it has not reappeared, but in its place viper's bugloss sprang up, a plant which was not previously to be found there. Hawkweeds, some wild vetches, white yarrow, thistles, and burdocks conceal the flints yet further, so that the track has the appearance of a green drive.

The slender birch and ash poles are hung with woodbine and wild hops, both growing in profusion. A cream-coloured wall of woodbine in flower extends in one spot, in another festoons of hops hang gracefully, and so thick as to hide everything beyond them. There is scarce a stole without its woodbine or hops; many of the poles, though larger than the arm, are scored with spiral grooves left by the bines. Under these bushes of woodbine the nightingales when they first arrive in spring are fond of searching for food, and dart on a grub with a low satisfied "kurr."

The place is so favourite a resort with these birds that it might well be called Nightingale Copse. Four or five may be heard singing at once on a warm May morning, and at least two may often be seen as well as heard at the same time. They sometimes sing from the trees, as well as from the bushes; one was singing one morning on an elm branch which projected over the road, and under which the van drivers jogged indifferently along. Sometimes they sing from the dark foliage of the Scotch firs.

As the summer wanes they haunt the hawthorn hedge by the roadside, leaving the interior of the copse, and may often be seen on the dry and dusty sward. When chiffchaff and willow-wren first come they remain in the treetops, but in the summer descend into the lower bushes, and, like the nightingales, come out upon the sward by the wayside. Nightingale Copse is also a great favourite with cuckoos. There are a few oaks in it, and in the meadows in the rear many detached hawthorn bushes, and two or three small groups of trees, chestnuts, lime, and elm. From the hawthorns to the elms, and from the elms to the oaks, the cuckoos continually circulate, calling as they fly.

One morning in May, while resting on a rail in the copse, I heard four calling close by, the furthest not a hundred yards distant, and as they continually changed their positions flying round there was always one in sight. They circled round, singing; the instant one ceased another took it up, a perfect madrigal. In the evening, at eight o'clock, I found them there again, still singing. The same detached groups of trees are much frequented by wood-pigeons, especially towards autumn.

Rooks prefer to perch on the highest branches, wood-pigeons more in the body of the tree, and when the boughs are bare of leaves a flock of the latter may be recognised in this way as far as the eye can see, and when the difference of colour is rendered imperceptible by distance. The wood-pigeon when perched has a rounded appearance; the rook a longer and sharper outline.

By one corner of the copse there is an oak, hollow within, but still green and flourishing. The hollow is black and charred; some mischievous boys must have lighted a fire inside it, just as the ploughboys do in the far away country. A little pond in the meadow close by is so overhung by another oak, and so surrounded with bramble and hawthorn, that the water lies in perpetual shade. It is just the spot where, if rabbits were about, one might be found sitting out on the bank under the brambles. This overhanging oak was broken by the famous October snow, 1880, further splintered by the gales of the next year, and its trunk is now split from top to bottom as if with wedges.

These meadows in spring are full of cowslips, and in one part the meadow-orchis flourishes. The method of making cowslip balls is universally known to children, from the most remote hamlet to the very verge of London, and the little children who dance along the green sward by the road here, if they chance to touch a nettle, at once search for a dock leaf to lay on it and assuage the smart. Country children, and indeed older folk, call the foliage of the knotted figwort cutfinger leaves, as they are believed to assist the cure of a cut or sore.

Raspberry suckers shoot up in one part of the copse; the fruit is doubtless eaten by the birds. Troops of them come here, travelling along the great hedge by the wayside, and all seem to prefer the outside trees and bushes to the interior of the copse. This great hedge is as wide as a country double mound, though it has but one ditch; the thick hawthorn, blackthorn, elder, and bramble--the oaks, elms, ashes, and firs form, in fact, almost a cover of themselves.

In the early spring, when the east wind rushes with bitter energy across the plains, this immense hedge, as far as it extends, shelters the wayfarer, the road being on the southern side, so that he can enjoy such gleams of sunshine as appear. In summer the place is, of course for the same reason, extremely warm, unless the breeze chances to come up strong from the west, when it sweeps over the open cornfields fresh and sweet. Stoats and weasels are common on the mound, or crossing the road to the corn; they seem more numerous in autumn, and I fear leveret and partridge are thinned by them.

Mice abound; in spring they are sometimes up in the blackthorn bushes, perhaps for the young buds. In summer they may often be heard rushing along the furrows across the wayside sward, scarce concealed by the wiry grass. Flowers are very local in habit; the spurge, for instance, which is common in a road parallel to this, is not to be seen, and not very much cow-parsnip, or "gix," one of the most freely-growing hedge plants, which almost chokes the mounds near by. Willowherbs, however, fill every place in the ditch here where they can find room between the bushes, and the arum is equally common, but the lesser celandine absent.

Towards evening, as the clover and vetches closed their leaves under the dew, giving the fields a different aspect and another green, I used occasionally to watch from here a pair of herons, sailing over in their calm serene way. Their flight was in the direction of the Thames, and they then passed evening after evening, but the following summer they did not come. One evening, later on in autumn, two birds appeared descending across the cornfields towards a secluded hollow where there was water, and, although at a considerable distance, from their manner of flight I could have no doubt they were teal.

The spotted leaves of the arum appeared in the ditches in this locality very nearly simultaneously with the first whistling of the blackbirds in February; last spring the chiffchaff sang soon after the flowering of the lesser celandine (not in this hedge, but near by), and the first swift was noticed within a day or two of the opening of the May bloom. Although not exactly, yet in a measure, the movements of plant and bird life correspond.