Part 6

Tree Pipits vary greatly in the quality of their music. One of the very finest singers I ever heard was on a hillside near to Builth Wells, in Wales. The call note is a trit, trit, or t’sip, t’sip.

It has been said that the male birds of this species are seldom found living within hearing distance of each other during the breeding season.

The nest is built on the ground, and is generally sheltered by a tuft of herbage growing on a grassy bank. It is composed of rootlets and moss with an inner lining of fine grass and hair. The eggs number from four to six, of very variable coloration. Some are dull white, so closely mottled and spotted with dark brown as to almost hide the ground colour, whilst others have the greyish-white ground colour tinged with purple, and are spotted and clouded with purple-brown and purple-red.

The Tree Pipit arrives upon our shores in April and leaves again in September and October.

=THE WOODLARK.=

The Woodlark is not nearly so common or widely distributed as the Skylark, and is frequently thought to be heard and seen when the bird under observation is really only a Tree Pipit.

It is smaller than the Skylark, and has a much shorter tail and more conspicuous crest. Although of somewhat similar coloration, it has a distinct light yellowish streak running over each eye and meeting at the back of the head; the breast spots are more distinct; and its flight always appears to me to be more undulatory.

The Woodlark is a shy creature, but had it not been for the very wet and benumbingly cold weather prevailing at the time I figured the young one shown in our illustration on page 56--which could fly quite well--I feel sure that I could have photographed one or both of the parent birds feeding it.

This species is considered by many people to come next to the Nightingale as one of Nature’s Carol Singers. Its voice is certainly sweeter in tone, though it lacks both the power and variety of that of the Common Skylark. Yarrell says that “its soothing notes never sound more sweetly than while the performer is mounting in the air by wide circles, or, having attained the summit of its lofty flight, is hanging almost stationary overhead.”

That is exactly how the bird’s delightfully flute-like notes affect me, although many people find an element of sadness in them. Burns, for instance, considered the Woodlark’s song a mixture of love and sorrow, and exclaimed:

“For pity’s sake, sweet bird, nae mair Or my poor heart is broken.”

It sings whilst perched upon a tree, and sometimes its clear, tender notes may be heard ringing out during a fine summer’s night.

The call notes of the species are a very musical double one, sounding something like lu-lu and tweedle, weedle, weedle, uttered on the wing.

The Woodlark, like the Tree Pipit, although roosting upon the ground, procuring its food and rearing its young there, must have some kind of timber, whether it be great belts of fir, with pastures and dry, heather-clad commons between, or bare hillsides with scattered clumps of oak and bushes here and there to make its home amongst.

It is said to breed most numerously in the southern counties of England, occasionally in the north, and rarely in Scotland and Ireland.

Its nest is very similar to that of the Common Skylark, but as a rule shows a little better workmanship, perhaps, in its construction. It is situated under a tuft of grass, in heather, or at the foot of a bush. Sometimes it is simply placed in a little hollow on ground which does not grow sufficient grass to form any kind of shelter or hiding.

The eggs, numbering four or five, are reddish-white, light brownish-yellow, or greenish-white in ground colour, thickly spotted and speckled with dull reddish-brown and underlying markings of grey.

This species commences to breed in March and rears two broods during the season. It resides with us all the year, but is subject to local movement.

=THE COMMON WREN.=

Everybody knows and loves the wee brown Wren with its active, pert ways and cheerful rattling song, which is heard nearly the whole of the year round.

“Jenny” or “Kitty” Wren, as the bird is often called, is to be met with almost everywhere by sea-shore and riverside, in the cultivated garden and on the barren waste, along the plain and on the mountain side, in thick woods and treeless deserts where there is little else than rocks for it to alight upon. Whether the sun be shining, flowers blooming, and food plentiful, or the ground be wreathed in a thick blanket of snow and the world a picture of desolation and a place of hunger, the little bird is ever cheerful, active, and gay. As the poets have it:

“When icicles hang dripping from the roof Pipes his perennial lay.”

Its song is surprisingly loud and clear for such a tiny musician, especially when heard only a few inches away, as I have heard it on several occasions whilst crouching inside some of my hiding contrivances waiting to secure a photograph of some shy bird or beast. It is delivered both upon the wing and when the musician is at rest upon a branch or stone.

A Wren’s call notes sound something like tit, tit-it, tit-it-it, tit-it-it-it, uttered so quickly as to resemble the winding-up of a clock.

Even in the depths of the very severest winter weather, “Jenny” Wren refuses to be “pauperised” like the Robin, the Blackbird, and the Song Thrush, and disdaining the help of man, hunts all day long for its own support in a spirit of hopeful independence. It does not matter whether it is an old moss-grown stone wall, a stack of loose firewood, or a shrubbery, in and out goes the little nut-brown bird from cold grey morn till glooming eve, examining every crack and cranny for some lurking morsel of insect life.

It is strange how such an innocent and altogether praiseworthy little bird should have come to occupy such an unenviable position in bird folklore. The common names of this species in most European languages assign kingly dignity to it, and it obtained kingship of all the birds by a mean kind of trick. A parliament of birds agreed that the one that could fly highest should be king. The Eagle easily mounted to the greatest height, but when he had reached it a little brown Wren that had cunningly hidden itself on his back fluttered a little higher, and by this piece of deceit gained the much-coveted honour. Whether for this or some other equally supposed evil deed, the poor bird used to be hunted in our country every Christmas Day by boys and men armed with sticks, and its body publicly exhibited the following day whilst money was begged to bury it.

Although the Common Wren is double brooded and rears from four to eight chicks twice each season, the stock never seems to increase much from one year to another. Nobody knows clearly what becomes of all the birds. Of course, natural death must claim a certain number of victims, and I have no doubt that both Owls and rats secure many individuals whilst they are asleep in holes in the thatches of ricks. I have also found several frozen to death during very severe weather in the winter. In order to avoid this last calamity the birds resort to a very ingenious method of roosting. Although they never go in flocks by day, eight or nine members of the species will congregate together in one hole at night, and by a combination of their natural warmth sleep in snug safety.

A Wren’s nest is very large for the size of the builder, is oval in shape, has a domed top, and a small entrance-hole in front. The bird is famous for the number of nests it builds and never occupies with either eggs or young. These structures, which are not finished inside by a lining of down or feathers, are supposed to be built by the males, and are called “cocks’” nests. Nobody knows with any degree of certainty why they are built. It has been suggested to roost in during cold winter nights, but careful investigations have convinced me that there is nothing in this theory.