Part 15

This species breeds fairly commonly near sluggish streams, ponds, swamps, and large sheets of water with reed-clad shores.

Its nest is generally situated amongst long grass, rushes, nettles, and sedges, although I have found it in the heather in the Outer Hebrides, and in a small thorn bush quite two hundred yards away from water in Surrey. The materials used in the structure are dried grass and moss with an inner lining of fine dead grass, hairs, and the feathery tops of reeds.

The eggs number four to six or even seven, and are of a purplish-grey or pale olive ground colour, spotted and streaked with rich, dark purple-brown.

This bird resides with us all the year round, and its numbers are increased during the winter by other members of its species arriving from the Continent.

=THE GOLDFINCH.=

This exceedingly pretty bird measures about five inches in length. The top of its head, nape, and the feathers from the base of the bill to the eye are black; forehead and throat rich scarlet; cheeks and under parts white, tinged on the breast and sides with pale, tawny-brown. Back pale tawny-brown, wing-coverts and quills black, the latter barred across with yellow and tipped with white. Tail quills black marked with white, and buffy-white near their tips.

Seventy years ago this species was extremely abundant, and as recently as 1873 a boy caught close upon five hundred during a single morning near to Brighton; but it is now, alas! comparatively rare, on account of the reclamation of waste lands having destroyed its seed-food plants, such as the thistle and burdock, and the heavy demands made upon its numbers for cage pets. Of course, a check has now been put upon the latter source of drainage to a great extent by the Wild Birds’ Protection Acts, and the birds are obtained from Germany.

During recent years I have met with it breeding in Surrey, Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Devonshire, and Westmorland. I know a place in the second-named county where as many as ten pairs bred in one season, and within the last half-dozen years I have twice seen small flocks in the autumn near London, which, let us hope, is an encouraging sign.

It is now rare in Scotland, but has been described as still common in the poorer and wilder parts of Ireland.

The Goldfinch is a migratory bird, although a few individuals winter with us, and are known in the spring from members of the species that have spent the cold season farther south by their less brilliant colours.

The nest is placed in the fork of an apple, pear, or other fruit tree in orchards and gardens; sometimes in evergreens or on the bough of a sycamore or chestnut tree, and occasionally in a thick hedgerow. It is composed of rootlets, moss, dry grass, wool, spiders’ webs, and lichens on the outside, and has an inner lining of vegetable down, hairs, and soft feathers. It is a neat and beautiful structure.

The eggs number from four to six, and are greyish-or greenish-white, spotted and streaked with light purplish-and reddish-brown and grey.

Although some people do not rank the Goldfinch very highly as a feathered vocalist, its twittering song is full of melody and sweetness, and together with its striking beauty and lively manners endear it to the heart of every lover of the country and its sights and sounds.

Bechstein says, “Its agreeable song, which is only discontinued during moulting, is a mixture of tones and harmonies more or less dwelt upon.”

It sings both when perched and upon the wing. Instances are upon record of young Goldfinches taken from the nest when only two or three days old, reproducing when they grew up not the music of their own kind, but the songs of other species heard from their places of captivity.

The poets have not given the bird a great deal of attention, but our photograph of a nest and eggs proves that Grahame was a good observer, else he could not have penned the following lines:

“Sometimes suspended at the limber end Of planetree spray, among the broad-leav’d shoots The tiny hammock swings to every gale.”

The call notes have been written down as ziflit or tisflit, twee-eet or twit, oft repeated, and glit uttered quickly.

=THE BLACKCAP WARBLER.=

Although generally distributed in suitable parts of England and Wales, and found breeding sparingly in the Lowlands of Scotland and certain parts of Ireland, the Blackcap Warbler is not so common in my experience as the youthful student would be led to believe after reading several books I could name upon ornithology.

It arrives in this country about the middle of April, as a rule; but, like many other migrants, is liable to some variation of date, being more influenced by the conditions of the weather than the readings of the calendar. It takes its departure again in September, although specimens have been observed during every month of the winter in the South and West of England.

The Blackcap is about five and a half inches in length, has a jet-black crown and light olive-brown upper parts, becoming greyer on the rump; throat and breast ash-grey, and under parts white. The female is somewhat similar in appearance, except for the fact that the top of her head is chocolate-brown instead of black.

This species loves small woods and spinnies with abundant undergrowth, shrubberies, old orchards, gardens, and bits of waste land with plenty of brambles and nettles growing thereon. If there is a sluggish stream close by, so much the better; although I have several times found it breeding far away from water of any kind.

The nest is a flimsy structure placed at varying heights from two to ten or twelve feet above the ground in brambles, nettles, briar, and thorn bushes, privet and other hedges. It is composed of straws, fibrous roots, and dead grass, frequently intermixed with cobwebs, and lined with hair.

The eggs number five or six, and may be divided into two types of coloration. In one they are of a greyish-white ground colour suffused with buffish-brown and spotted, blotched, and marbled with dark brown, similar to those of the Garden Warbler. In the other they are of a pale brick-red or crimson hue marked with deep reddish-brown.

This bird is one of our finest feathered melodists. Gilbert White was greatly in love with its vocal powers, and in his third letter to Daines Barrington says that the “wild sweetness of its song reminded him of Shakespeare’s lines in As You Like It:”

“And tune his merry note Unto the wild bird’s throat.”

In Letter XL. to Pennant, he says, “The Blackcap has a full, sweet, deep, loud and wild pipe; yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory; but when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the Nightingale excepted.”