Bird Notes and News 



45 



" Rats and mice have mobilised and 

 swarmed into the fighting line, and there 

 has been a partial mobilisation of Owls, 

 particularly Barn Owls, following in the 

 wake of the mice and making laudable 

 efforts to thin out their numbers. . . . The 

 Buzzard, that earnest seeker after mice, 

 does not seem to be taking any war risks, 

 at least I have never seen one out here, 

 but Kestrels hover about all day in the 

 hottest parts of the line, not in the least 

 disconcerted apparently when a promising 

 mouse-area suddenly rises in the air in a 

 cascade of black or yellow earth. Sparrow- 

 Hawks are fairly numerous, and a mile or 

 two back from the firing line I saw a pair 

 of Hawks that I took to be Red-legged 

 Falcons circling over the tops of an oak 

 copse. 



" The English gamekeeper, whose know- 

 ledge of wild life usually runs on limited and 

 perverted lines, has evolved a sort of religion 

 as to the nervous debility of even the hardiest 

 game birds ; according to his beliefs a terrier 

 trotting across a field in which a Partridge 

 is nesting, or a mouse-hawking Kestrel 

 hovering over the hedge, is sufficient cause 

 to drive the distracted bird off its eggs and 

 send it whirring into the next county. 



" The Partridge of the war zone shows no 

 signs of such sensitive nerves. The rattle 

 and rumble of transport, the constant coming 

 and going of bodies of troops, the incessant 

 rattle of musketr}^ and deafening explosions 

 of artniery, the night-long flare and flicker 

 of star-shells, have not sufficed to scare the 

 local birds away from their chosen feeding 

 grounds, and to all appearances they have 

 not been deterred from raising their broods. 

 Gamekeepers who are serving with the 

 colours might seize the opportunity to 

 indulge in a little useful nature study." 



Perhaps the most extraordinary instance 

 of bird -intrepidity, however, is that re- 

 counted elsewhere by another correspondent, 

 of a Hawk tackling a bomb in mid-air. 

 What sort of weird bird he took the thing 

 for none can say ; but happily he got clear 

 before it exploded. 



The Chaffinch that Stayed. 



The most touching of Mr, Monro's stories 

 is about a Chaffinch — 



" At the comer of a stricken wood (which 

 has had a name made for it in history, 

 but shall be nameless here), at a moment 

 when lyddite and shrapnel and machine-gun 

 fire swept and raked and bespattered that 

 devoted spot as though the artillery of an 

 entire Division had suddenly concentrated 

 on it, a wee hen Chaffinch flitted wistfully 

 to and fro, amid splintered and falling 

 branches that had never a green bough left 

 on them. The wounded lying there, if any 

 of them n.oticed the small bird, may well 

 have wondered why anything having wings 

 and no pressing reason for remaining should 

 have chosen to stay in such a place. There 

 was a battered orchard alongside the stricken 

 wood, and the probable explanation of the 

 bird's presence was that it had a nest of 

 young ones whom it was too scared to feed, 

 too loyal to desert. Later on, a small 

 flock of Chaffinches blundered into the wood, 

 which they were doubtless in the habit of 

 using as a highway to their feeding-grounds ; 

 unhke the solitary hen-bird, they made no 

 secret of their desire to get away as fast as 

 their dazed wits would let them." 



An officer in the French Flying Corps, who 

 may be identified with a valued fellow- 

 worker of the R.S.P.B., has taken advantage 

 of exceptional opportunities to record obser- 

 vations on the flight of birds and the height 

 at which they fly, especially when migrating. 

 Some of his notes are published in the 

 Pall Mall Gazette (Nov, 11th, 1916), Swallows, 

 he says, 



'' Seem to prefer an altitude of 2,000 ft,, 

 whereas Wild Duck fly usually at fully 

 5,000 ft. They are remarkable, also, for 

 the marvellous uniformity with which they 

 follow their leader. The turns and twists 

 are taken with such simultaneity that a flock 

 appears to turn and wheel automatically, so 

 extraordinarily together do they move. 

 When climbing they fly at about sixty-five 

 miles an hom-, and are good for seventy 

 once they have got their height and have 

 spread out to let themselves go, 



"Last March he met some Plovers at 

 6,500 ft., which is the highest at which 

 he has seen a company of birds," 



