ICELAND RED-WINGED THRUSH 5 



the grass and from the surface soil and often by rooting about among 

 dead leaves when the birds are feeding near trees or hedgerows or on 

 the outskirts of a wood. On the ground their carriage and gait are 

 those of a typical thrush; they move by a short run or succession of 

 hops followed by a pause and then repeated. When disturbed or 

 resting and when preparing to roost they perch freely in trees and 

 hedges, and it is from the branches of the still bare trees that parties 

 may be heard uttering their low babbling subsong on genial days 

 early in spring while still in their winter quarters. The flight is direct 

 or only slightly undulating. 



Voice. — The call note, used especially in flight, is a soft, thin seek. 

 Feeding flocks have also a soft chup, and another, quite different but 

 highly characteristic note, much heard at roosts and to some extent 

 at other times, is a very hard-sounding chittuck, or chittick, with 

 variations. This is also the regular alarm note of breeding birds as 

 heard in northern Europe, where I have also noted the call of fledged 

 young birds as a husky chucc. 



With regard to the song of the redwing there has been some dif- 

 ference of opinion. In Scandinavia it has been called the ' 'northern 

 nightingale," and various observers, among them the great Linnaeus, 

 have praised its song in terms which others have thought quite 

 extravagant. At least a partial explanation of this divergence of 

 opinion is that the redwing thrush has two perfectly distinct songs. 

 The one by far the most frequently heard is a simple refrain consisting 

 of several, commonly three or four, clear fluty notes generally, but 

 not always, followed by a poor, low, chuckling warble. This song is 

 usually delivered from a pine or other tree, sometimes exposed to 

 view on the top, but often in cover. An interesting feature is its 

 remarkable proneness to local dialects. Thus in Lapland in 1937 I 

 found all or nearly all the birds in one district singing the same very 

 simple stereotyped phrase, which could be rendered as trui-trui-trui, 

 while in another district not 30 miles away they were a trifle more 

 ambitious and sang tee- (or sometimes tee-tu) ti ruppi-ti ruppi-ti ruppi 

 with only insignificant variations. The fluty notes are quite musical 

 and pleasing, but the unvarying repetition is monotonous and any 

 comparison with the nightingale would be absurd to anyone familiar 

 with that bird. 



There is, however, what must be regarded as a premating song, 

 which appears really to merit the praise bestowed on it. It is thus 

 described by H. W. Wheelwright (1871): 



Of all the northern songsters, perhaps the redwing stands first on the list, and 

 is with justice called the northern nightingale, for a sweeter song I never wish to 

 listen to when this rich gush of melody is poured out from the thick covert of a 

 fir in the "silence of twilight's contemplative hour," or often in the still hour of 



