NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES 



waterfall close to the road a dipper is building, 

 and we see her from time to time turn from the 

 broad thoroughfare of the river to follow the course 

 of the streamlet-byway that leads to her home. 

 Never for a moment are we without the white 

 wagtails, drooping with soft call-note from the 

 eaves of the barn, and tripping lightly on the 

 road or on the steps of the house. Among other 

 extremely numerous species are the yellow- 

 hammer, wheatear, whinchat, willow-wren, white- 

 throat, hooded crow, magpie, not to name the 

 well-nigh ubiquitous fieldfare. 



In Yarrell it is stated that Hewitson was 

 the first Englishman to publish from his own 

 observation an account of the fieldfare's nidi- 

 fication in Norway. He describes how after a 

 long ramble through thick woods he was de- 

 lighted to discover a colony, which he at first 

 took to be shrikes. Whether the fieldfare was 

 a less common bird generally in 1833, when 

 Hewitson wrote, or whether in the area he visited 

 the species was less prolific, we cannot, of course, 

 say. But the fact remains that to-day, around 

 the Nordfjord, and in all the road-side woods 

 extending from Sandene to Vadheim on the 

 Sognefjord, the fieldfare literally abounds, and 

 is a far more common and conspicuous species 

 than the thrush is in England. The nests are 

 built in the most conspicuous positions, mainly in 

 forks, but sometimes on the outer boughs of the 

 various trees and bushes. The silver birch and 

 the hazel predominate here and are largely chosen. 

 Many nests can be reached without climbing, some 

 are almost on the ground, and none exceed a 

 height of some twenty or thirty feet. They are 

 constructed after the manner of the song thrush's, 

 but are deeper, and in the mud cup a lining of 

 dried grass, three to four inches thick, is added. 



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