CHAPTER VI 



THE STONECHAT 



The Stonechat, too, loves the Broadland, and his brighter 

 colouring makes him more desirable than the whinchat. 

 He might have been appropriately called the wheatear, for 

 his song, a harsh, abrupt ivheat-eav, wheat-ear, can be heard 

 as he flits from fern to bramble-bush in the early spring- 

 time ; for he is not a lover of marshland when the snow-blast 

 and hail-squall sweeps over the land, rustling the creaking 

 reed-stubbles. Then he retires to the uplands, where hedge- 

 row and farm-shed give him shelter when the rime-crystals 

 deck the dead thistles with gems. 



But in early spring he comes down to the marshes, and 

 you may see him flying up into the air, catching insects, 

 returning to his station on a thistle-stalk, whence he drops 

 down to the marsh-sedges for some dainty morsel, flitting 

 back again to his look-out perch. 



And when the flowers are glowing over the grey marsh- 

 lands, these little birds build in the side of a marsh-wall, 

 placing their nests in the grass, or they may choose some 

 marsh-bottom. Their cradle is built of marsh-grasses, hair, 

 roots, and feathers, wherein six eggs — greener than those 

 of his relative the whinchat — lie snugly. The parents 

 never leave the nest far; should you approach, they keep 

 " chatting " and flying restlessly about the nest, alighting 

 on bramble-sprays, prickly gorse, or sallow-stoles. 



Later, when the young are hatched, you may see them 



following the mowers, catching moths and grasshoppers and 



flies, as the coarse swathes fall before the sturdy marshmen's 



strokes. 



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