CHAPTER VI 



A WOOD BY THE SEA 



The pine wood at Wells — An extraordinary echo — Crows dis- 

 turbed by a barn owl — Pheasant and blackbird feeding 

 together — Friendships between birds of different species — 

 Account of a pet pheasant. 



ONE of my favourite haunts at Wells, in 

 Norfolk, is the pine wood, a mile or two long, 

 growing on the slope of the sand-hills and 

 extending from the Wells embankment to Holkham 

 — a black strip with the yellow-grey dunes and the 

 sea on one side and the wide level green marsh on the 

 other. It is the roosting-place of all the crows that 

 winter on that part of the coast, and I time my visits 

 so as to be there in the evening. Rooks and daws also 

 resort to that spot, and altogether there is a vast 

 concourse of birds of the crow family. My habit is 

 to stroll on to the embankment at about three o'clock 

 to watch and listen to the geese on their way from 

 their feeding-grounds to the sea, always flying too 

 high for the poo/ gunners lying in wait for them. So 

 poor, indeed, a - e some of these men that they will 

 shoot at anything that flies by, even a hooded crow. 

 They do not fire at it for fun — they can't afford to 

 throw away a cartridge: one of them assured me 

 that a crow, stewed with any other bird he might 



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