MARCH
THE WOODPIGEON
The woodpigeon is many things to many men. To the farmer, who has some claim to priority of verdict, it is a curse, even as the rabbit in Australia, the lemming in Norway, or the locust in Algeria. The tiller of the soil, whose business brings him in open competition with the natural appetites of such voracious birds, beasts, or insects, regards his rivals from a standpoint which has no room for sentiment; and the woodpigeons are to our farmers, particularly in the well-wooded districts of the West Country, even as Carthage was to Cato the Censor, something to be destroyed.
It is this attitude of the farmer which makes the woodpigeon pre-eminently the bird of February. All through the shooting season just ended, a high pigeon has proved an irresistible temptation to the guns, whether cleaving the sky above the tree-tops, doubling behind a broad elm, or suddenly swinging out of a gaunt fir. Yet it is in February, when other shooting is at an end and the coverts no longer echo the fusillade of the past four months, that the farmers, furious at the sight of green root-crops grazed as close as by sheep and of young clover dug up over every acre of their tilling, welcome the co-operation of sportsmen glad to use up the balance of their cartridges in organised pigeon battues. These gatherings have, during the past five years, become an annual function in parts of Devonshire and the neighbouring counties, and if the bag is somewhat small in proportion to the guns engaged, a wholesome spirit of sport informs those who take part, and there is a curiously utilitarian atmosphere about the proceedings. Everyone seems conscious that, in place of the usual idle pleasure of the covert-side or among the turnips, he is out for a purpose, not merely killing birds that have been reared to make his holiday, but actually helping the farmers in their fight against Nature. As, moreover, recent scares of an epidemic not unlike diphtheria have precluded the use of the birds for table purposes, the powder is burnt with no thought of the pot.
The usual plan is to divide the guns in small parties and to post these in neighbouring plantations or lining hedges overlooking these spinneys. At a given signal the firing commences and is kept up for several hours, a number of the marauders being killed and the rest so harried that many of them must leave the neighbourhood, only to find a similar warm welcome across the border. Some such concerted attack has of late years been rendered necessary by the great increase in the winter invasion from overseas. It is probable that, as most writers on the subject insist, the wanderings of these birds are for the most part restricted to these islands and are mere food forays, like those which cause locusts to desert a district that they have stripped bare for pastures new. At the same time, it seems to be beyond all doubt the fact that huge flocks of woodpigeons reach our shores annually from Scandinavia, and their inroads have had such serious results that it is only by joint action that their numbers can be kept under. For such work February is obviously the month, not only because most of their damage to the growing crops and seeds is accomplished at this season, but also because large numbers of gunners, no longer able to shoot game, are thus at the disposal of the farmers and only too glad to prolong their shooting for a few weeks to such good purpose.
Many birds are greedy. The cormorant has a higher reputation of the sort to live up to than even the hog, and some of the hornbills, though less familiar, are endowed with Gargantuan appetites. Yet the ringdove could probably vie with any of them. Mr. Harting mentions having found in the crop of one of these birds thirty-three acorns and forty-four beech-nuts, while no fewer than 139 of the latter were taken, together with other food remains, from another. It is no uncommon experience to see the crop of a woodpigeon that is brought down from a great height burst, on reaching the earth, with a report like that of a pistol, and scatter its undigested contents broadcast. Little wonder then, that the farmers welcome the slaughter of so formidable a competitor! It is one of their biggest customers, and pays nothing for their produce. One told me, not long ago, that the woodpigeons had got at a little patch of young rape, only a few acres in all, which had been uncovered by the drifting snow, and had laid it as bare as if the earth had never been planted. Seeing what hearty meals the woodpigeon makes, it is not surprising that it should sometimes throw up pellets of undigested material. This is not, however, a regular habit, as in the case of hawks and owls, and is rather, perhaps, the result of some abnormally irritating food.
Pigeons digest their food with the aid of a secretion in the crop, and it is on this soft material, popularly known as "pigeons' milk," that they feed their nestlings. This method suggests analogy to that of the petrels, which rear their young on fish-oil partly digested after the same fashion. Indeed, all the pigeons are devoted parents. Though the majority build only a very pretentious platform of sticks for the two eggs, they sit very close and feed the young ones untiringly. Some of the pigeons of Australia, indeed, go even further. Not only do they build a much more substantial nest of leafy twigs, but the male bird actually sits throughout the day, such paternal sense of duty being all the more remarkable from the fact that these pigeons of the Antipodes usually lay but a single egg. Australia, with the neighbouring islands, must be a perfect paradise for pigeons, since about half of the species known to science occur in that region only. The wonga-wonga and bronze-wing and great fruit-pigeons are, like the "bald-pates" of Jamaica, all favourite birds with sportsmen, and some of the birds are far more brightly coloured than ours. It is, however, noticeable that even the gayest Queensland species, with wings shot with every prismatic hue, are dull-looking birds seen from above, and the late Dr. A. R. Wallace regarded this as affording protection against keen-eyed hawks on the forage. His ingenious theory receives support from the well-known fact that in many of the islands, where pigeons are even more plentiful, but where also hawks are few, the former wear bright clothes on their back as well.
The woodpigeon has many names in rural England. That by which it is referred to in the foregoing notes is not, perhaps, the most satisfactory, since, with the possible exception of the smaller stock-dove, which lays its eggs in rabbit burrows, and the rock-dove, which nests in the cliffs, all the members of the family need trees, if only to roost and nest in. A more descriptive name is that of ringdove, easily explained by the white collar, but the bird is also known as cushat, queest, or even culver. The last-named, however, which will be familiar to readers of Tennyson, probably alludes specifically to the rock-dove, as it undoubtedly gave its name to Culver Cliff, a prominent landmark in the Isle of Wight, where these birds have at all times been sparingly in evidence.
The ringdove occasionally rears a nestling in captivity, but it does not seem, at any time of life, to prove a very attractive pet. White found it strangely ferocious, and another writer describes it as listless and uninteresting. The only notable success on record is that scored by St. John, who set some of the eggs under a tame pigeon and secured one survivor that appears to have grown quite tame, but was, unfortunately, eaten by a hawk. At any rate, it did its kind good service by enlisting on their side the pen of the most ardent apologist they have ever had. Indeed, St. John did not hesitate to rate the farmers soundly for persecuting the bird in wilful ignorance of its unpaid services in clearing their ground of noxious weeds. Yet, however true his eloquent plea may have been in respect of his native Lothian, there would be some difficulty in persuading South Country agriculturists of the woodpigeon's hidden virtues. To those, however, who do not sow that they may reap, the subject of these remarks has irresistible charm. There is doubtless monotony in its cooing, yet, heard in a still plantation of firs, with no other sound than perhaps the distant call of a shepherd or barking of a farm dog, it is a music singularly in harmony with the peaceful scene. The arrowy flight of these birds when they come in from the fields at sundown and fall like rushing waters on the tree-tops is an even more memorable sound. To the sportsman, above all, the woodpigeon shows itself a splendid bird of freedom, more cunning than any hand-reared game bird, swifter on the wing than any other purely wild bird, a welcome addition to the bag because it is hard to shoot in the open, and because in life it was a sore trial to a class already harassed with their share of this life's troubles.
APRIL
BIRDS IN THE HIGH HALL GARDEN
All March the rooks were busy in the swaying elms, but it is these softer evenings of April, when the first young leaves are beginning to frame the finished nests, and the boisterous winds of last month no longer drown the babble of the tree-top parliament at the still hour when farm labourers are homing from the fields, that the rooks peculiarly strike their own note in the country scene. There is no good reason to confuse these curious and interesting fowl with any other of the crow family. Collectively they may be recognised by their love of fellowship, for none are more sociable than they. Individually the rook is stamped unmistakably by the bald patch on the face, where the feathers have come away round the base of the beak. The most generally accepted explanation of this disfigurement is the rook's habit of thrusting its bill deep in the earth in search of its daily food. This, on the face of it, looks like a reasonable explanation, but it should be borne in mind that not only do some individual rooks retain through life the feathers normally missing, but that several of the rook's cousins dip into Nature's larder in the same fashion without suffering any such loss. However, the featherless patch on the rook's cheeks suffices, whatever its cause, as a mark by which to recognise the bird living or dead.
Unlike its cousin the jackdaw, which commonly nests in the cliffs, the rook is not, perhaps, commonly associated with the immediate neighbourhood of the sea, but a colony close to my own home in Devonshire displays sufficiently interesting adaptation to estuarine conditions to be worth passing mention. Just in the same way that gulls make free of the wireworms on windswept ploughlands, so in early summer do the old rooks come sweeping down from the elms on the hill that overlooks my fishing ground and take their share of cockles and other muddy fare in the bank uncovered by the falling tide. Here, in company with gulls, turnstones, and other fowl of the foreshore, the rooks strut importantly up and down, digging their powerful bills deep in the ooze and occasionally bullying weaker neighbours out of their hard-earned spoils. The rook is a villain, yet there is something irresistible in the effrontery with which one will hop sidelong on a gorging gull, which beats a hasty retreat before its sable rival, leaving some half-prized shellfish to be swallowed at sight or carried to the greedy little beaks in the tree-tops. While rooks are far more sociable than crows, the two are often seen in company, not always on the best of terms, but usually in a condition suggestive of armed neutrality. An occasional crow visits my estuary at low tide, but, though the bird would be a match for any single rook, I never saw any fighting between them. Possibly the crow feels its loneliness and realises that in case of trouble none of its brothers are there to see fair play. Yet carrion crows, like herons, are among the rook's most determined enemies, and cases of rookeries being destroyed by both birds are on record. On the other hand, though the heron is the far more powerful bird of the two, heronries have likewise been scattered, and their trees appropriated, by rooks, probably in overwhelming numbers. Of the two the heron is, particularly in the vicinity of a preserved trout stream, the more costly neighbour. Indeed it is the only other bird which nests in colonies of such extent, but there is this marked difference between herons and rooks, that the former are sociable only in the colony. When away on its own business, the heron is among the most solitary of birds, having no doubt, like many other fishermen, learnt the advantage of its own company.
One of the most remarkable habits in the rook is that of visiting the old nests in mid-winter. Now and again, it is true, a case of actually nesting at that season has been noticed, but the fancy for sporting round the deserted nests is something quite different from this. I have watched the birds at the nests on short winter days year after year, but never yet saw any confirmation of the widely accepted view that their object is the putting in order of their battered homes for the next season. It seems a likely reason, but in that case the birds would surely be seen carrying twigs for the purpose, and I never saw them do so before January. What other attraction the empty nurseries can have for them is a mystery, unless indeed they are sentimental enough to like revisiting old scenes and cawing over old memories.
The proximity of a rookery does not affect all people alike. Some who, ordinarily dwelling in cities, suffer from lack of bird neighbours, would regard the deliberate destruction of a rookery as an act of vandalism. A few, as a matter of fact, actually set about establishing such a colony where none previously existed, an ambition that may generally be accomplished without extreme difficulty. All that is needed is to transplant a nest or two of young rooks and lodge them in suitable trees. The parent birds usually follow, rear the broods, and forthwith found a settlement for future generations to return to. Even artificial nests, with suitable supplies of food, have succeeded, and it seems that the rook is nowhere a very difficult neighbour to attract and establish.
Why are rooks more sociable than ravens, and what do they gain from such communalism? These are favourite questions with persons informed with an intelligent passion for acquiring information, and the best answer, without any thought of irreverence, is "God knows!" It is most certain that we, at any rate, do not. So far from explaining how it was that rooks came to build their nests in company, we cannot even guess how the majority of birds came to build nests at all, instead of remaining satisfied with the simpler plan of laying their eggs in the ground that is still good enough for the petrels, penguins, kingfishers, and many other kinds. Protection of the eggs from rain, frost, and natural enemies suggests itself as the object of the nest, but the last only would to some extent be furthered by the gregarious habit, and even so we have no clue as to why it should be any more necessary for rooks than for crows. To quote, as some writers do, the numerical superiority of rooks over ravens as evidence of the benefits of communal nesting is to ignore the long hostility of shepherds towards the latter birds on which centuries of persecution have told irreparably. Rooks, on the other hand, though also regarded in some parts of these islands as suspects, have never been harassed to the same extent; and if anything in the nature of general warfare were to be inaugurated against them, the gregarious habit, so far from being a protection, would speedily and disastrously facilitate their extermination. Another curious habit noticed in these birds is that of flying on fine evenings to a considerable height and then swooping suddenly to earth, often on their backs. These antics, comparable to the drumming of snipe and roding of woodcock, are probably to be explained on the same basis of sexual emotion.
The so-called parliament of the rooks probably owes much of its detail to the florid imagination of enthusiasts, always ready to exaggerate the wonders of Nature; but it also seems to have some existence in fact, and privileged observers have actually described the trial and punishment of individuals that have broken the laws of the commune. I never saw this procedure among rooks, but once watched something very similar among the famous dogs of Constantinople, which no longer exist.
The most important problem however in connection with the rook is the precise extent to which the bird is the farmer's enemy or his friend. On the solution hangs the rook's fate in an increasingly practical age, which may at any moment put sentiment on one side and decree for it the fate that is already overtaking its big cousin the raven. Scotch farmers have long turned their thumbs down and regarded rooks as food for the gun, but in South Britain the bird's apologists have hitherto been able to hold their own and avert catastrophe from their favourite. The evidence is conflicting. On the one hand, it seems undeniable that the rook eats grain and potato shoots. It also snaps young twigs off the trees and may, like the jay and magpie, destroy the eggs of game birds. On the other hand, particularly during the weeks when it is feeding its nestlings, it admittedly devours quantities of wireworms, leathergrubs, and weevils, as well as of couch grass and other noxious weeds, while some of its favourite dainties, such as thistles, walnuts, and acorns, will hardly be grudged at any time. It is not an easy matter to decide; and, if the rook is to be spared, economy must be tempered with sentiment, in which case the evidence will perhaps be found to justify a verdict of guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy.