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The Water-Ouzel: Nest; Singular Habits; Food; Song of — Kingfisher: Rare
Visits of; Manner of Fishing — Terns: Quickness in Fishing; Nests of.
For several years a pair of those singular little birds the water-ouzel
have built their nest and reared their young on a buttress of a bridge,
across what is called the Black burn, near Dalvey.
This year I am sorry to see, that owing to
some repairs in the bridge, the birds have not returned to their former
abode. The nest, when looked at from above, had exactly the appearance of
a confused heap of rubbish, drifted by some flood to the place where it
was built, and attached to the bridge just where the buttress joins the
perpendicular part of the masonry. The old birds evidently took some
trouble to deceive the eye of those who passed along the bridge, by giving
the nest the look of a chance collection of material.
I do not know, among our common birds, so
amusing and interesting a little fellow as the water-ouzel, whether seen
during the time of incubation, or during the winter months, when he
generally betakes himself to some burn near the sea, less likely to be
frozen over than those more inland. In the burn near this place there are
certain stones, each of which is always occupied by one particular
water-ouzel; there he sits all day, with his snow-white breast turned
towards you, jerking his apology for a tail, and occasionally darting off
for a hundred yards or so, with a quick, rapid, but straight-forward
flight; then down he plumps into the water, remains under for perhaps a
minute or two; and then flies back to his usual station. At other times
the water-ouzel walks deliberately off his stone down into the water, and,
despite of Mr. Waterton's strong opinion of the impossibility of the feat,
he walks and runs about on the gravel at the bottom of the water,
scratching with his feet among the small stones, and picking away at all
the small insects and animalculae; which he can dislodge. On two or three
occasions I have witnessed this act of the water-ouzel, and have most
distinctly seen the bird walking and feeding in this manner under the
pellucid waters of a Highland burn. It is in this way that the water-ouzel
is supposed to commit great havoc in the spawning beds of salmon and
trout, uncovering the ova, and leaving what it does not eat open to the
attacks of eels and other fish, or liable to be washed away by the
current; and, notwithstanding my regard for this little bird, I am afraid
I must admit that he is guilty of no small destruction amongst the spawn.
The water-ouzel has another very peculiar
habit which I have never heard mentioned. In the coldest days of winter I
have seen him alight on a quiet pool, and with out-stretched wings recline
for a few moments on the water, uttering a most sweet; and merry song —
then rising into the air, he wheels round and round for a minute or two,
repeating his song as he flies back to some accustomed stone. His notes
are so pleasing, that he fully deserves a place in the list of our
song-birds; though I never found but one other person, besides myself, who
would own to having heard the water-ouzel sing. In the early spring, too,
he courts his mate with the same harmony, and pursues her from bank to
bank, singing as loudly as he can; often have I stopped to listen to him
as he flew to and fro along the burn, apparently full of business and
importance — then pitching on a stone, he would look at me with such
confidence, that, notwithstanding the bad name he has acquired with the
fishermen, I never could make up my mind to shoot him. He frequents the
rocky burns far up the mountains, building in the crevices of the rocks,
and rearing his young in peace and security, amidst the most wild and
magnificent scenery.
The nest is large, and built, like a wren's,
with a roof; the eggs are a transparent white. The people here have an
idea that the water-ouzel preys on small fish, but this is an erroneous
idea; the bird is not adapted in any way either for catching fish or for
swallowing them.
During a severe frost last year, I watched for
some time a common kingfisher, who, by some strange chance, and quite
against its usual habits, had strayed into this northern latitude. He
first caught my eye while darting like a living emerald along the course
of a small unfrozen stream between my house and the river; he then
suddenly alighted on a post, and remained a short time motionless in the
peculiar strange attitude of his kind, as if intent on gazing at the sky.
All at once a new idea comes into his head, and he follows the course of
the ditch, hovering here and there like a hawk, at the height of a yard or
so above the water; suddenly down he drops into it, disappears for a
moment, and then rises into the air with a trout of about two inches long
in his bill; this he carries quickly to the post where he had been resting
before, and having beat it in an angry and vehement manner against the
wood for a minute, he swallows it whole. I tried to get at him, coveting
the bright blue feathers on his back, which are extremely useful in
fly-dressing, but before I was within shot, he darted away, crossed the
river, and sitting on a rail on the opposite side, seemed to wait as if
expecting me to wade after him ; this, however, I did not think it worth
while doing, as the water was full of floating ice,— so I left the
kingfisher where he was, and never saw him again. Their visits to this
country are very rare ; I only have seen one other, and he was sitting on
the bow of my boat watching the water below him for a passing trout small
enough to be swallowed.
The kingfisher, the terns, and the solan geese
are the only birds that fish in this way, hovering like a hawk in the air
and dropping into the water to catch any passing fish that their sharp
eyesight can detect. The rapidity with which a bird must move to catch a
fish in this manner is one of the most extraordinary things that I know. A
tern, for instance, is flying at about twenty yards high — suddenly he
sees some small fish (generally a sand-eel, one of the most active little
animals in the world),—down drops the bird, and before the slippery little
fish (that glances about in the water like a silver arrow) can get out of
reach, he is caught in the bill of the tern, and in a moment afterwards is
either swallowed whole, or journeying rapidly through quite a new element
to feed the young of his captor. Often in the summer have I watched flocks
of terns fishing in this manner at a short distance from the shore, and
never did I see one emerge after his plunge into the water without a
sand-eel. When I have shot at the bird as he flew away with his prey, I
have picked up the sand-eel, and there are always the marks of his bill in
one place, just behind the head, where it seems to be invariably caught.
The terns which breed in the islands on a loch
in the woods of Altyre, fully five miles in a straight line from where
they fish, fly up to their young with every sand-eel they catch. I have
seen them fly backwards and forwards in this way for hours together,
apparently bringing the whole of their food from the sea, notwithstanding
the distance; their light body and long swallow-like wings make this long
flight to and fro less fatiguing to the tern than it would be to almost
any other bird.
Great numbers of terns breed every year on the
sandhills. Their eggs, three in number, are laid in a small hole scraped
amongst the shingle, or on the bare sand. Generally, however, they choose
a place abounding in small stones; and their eggs being very nearly of the
same colour as the pebbles, it is very difficult to distinguish them. The
nests being frequently at so considerable a distance from the water, it
has often been a matter of surprise to me how the young birds can live
till they have strength to journey to the sea-shore. I never yet could
find any of the newly-hatched terns near the nests, and am of opinion that
the old birds in some way or other carry off their young, as soon as they
are out of the egg, to some place more congenial to so essentially a
water-bird than the arid ground on which they are hatched. During fine
weather the terns never sit on their eggs in the daytime, but, uttering
unceasing cries, hover and fly about over the spot where their nests are.
All day long have I seen them hovering in this manner, with a flight more
like that of a butterfly than of a bird. If a man approaches their eggs,
they dash about his head with a loud angry clamour; and all the other
terns who have eggs, for miles around, on hearing the cry of alarm, fly to
see what it is all about, and having satisfied their curiosity, return to
the neighbourhood of their own domicile, ready to attack any intruder. If
a crow in search of eggs happens to wander near the terns'
building-places, she is immediately attacked by the whole community, every
bird joining in the chase, and striking furiously at their common enemy,
who is glad to make off as quickly as she can. The terns, having pursued
her to some distance, return seemingly well satisfied with their feat of
arms. I have also detected the fox by the rapid swoops of the terns as
they dash at him if he happens to pass near their nests.
There is one kind of tern that breeds on the
sandhills, which is peculiarly beautiful, the lesser tern, or Terna minuta.
This little bird, scarcely bigger than a swift, and of a pale blue in the
upper part of her plumage, is of the most satin-like and dazzling
whiteness in all the lower portions. It is a most delicate-looking
creature, but has a stronger and more rapid flight than the larger kinds,
and when he joins in their clamorous attacks on any enemy, utters a louder
and shriller cry than one could expect to hear from so small a body. Its
eggs are similar in colour to those of the common tern, but much smaller.
The roseate tern also visits us. I do not know
that I have ever found the eggs of this kind, but I have distinguished the
bird by its pale bluish coloured breast, as it hovered over my head
amongst the other terns.
A favourite position of the tern is on the
stakes of the salmon-fishers' nets. Frequently every stake has a tern on
it, where, if unmolested, they sit quietly watching the operations of the
fishermen. Indeed, they are rather a tame and familiar bird, not much
afraid of man, and seeming to trust (and, as far as I am concerned, not in
vain) to their beauty and harmlessness as a safeguard against the
wandering sportsman. Excepting when wanting a specimen for any particular
purpose, I make a rule never to molest any bird that is of no use when
dead, and which, like the tern, is both an interesting and beautiful
object when living.
These birds make but a short sojourn with us,
arriving in April in great numbers, and collecting in flocks on the sands
of the bay for a few days. They then betake themselves to their
breeding-places, and, having reared their young, leave us before the
beginning of winter.
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