184



The Birds of Richmond Park.



reminds one of the caged Canary, but without the Canary’s ear-splitting

persistency.


From the dead branches of an oak in front of where I sat came

the loud sonorous drumming of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. For

a while I was unable to find him, as he insisted, as Woodpeckers will

the world over, on keeping the branch he was on between himself and

me. But he soon got used to me, so that I was able to watch him for

some while, through my glasses, as he rapidly hammered on the dead

wood, which is a sort of love-song that is, I believe, only made by this

family of birds.


From my position I was able to hear no less than three male

Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers drumming at once. Surely it would be

difficult to find any other place in England where so many of these

small Picidae abound, and this only half an hour’s journey from

London ! They seem much more plentiful here than in the New

Forest, which is such a good place for all the Woodpeckers, specially for

the Greater Spotted.


Presently I became aware of a most restless small bird which

flitted about the lower branches of an oak-tree ; and proved to be

a female Redstart, which was presently joined by her handsome mate.


Herons flew over occasionally, evidently carrying food to their

ravenous young, which could be heard honking and coughing somewhere

amongst the tops of some high trees in an enclosure not far away.


In this same enclosure were a few Chiffchaffs, a hilarious Green

Woodpecker, and a Cuckoo.


Just in front of me in some rough low-lying ground, with clumps

of last year’s dead bracken, was a pair of Whinchats, evidently, from

their restless movements, feeling very uncomfortable about my inten¬

tions, which made one suspect they had a nest somewhere about,

particularly as the hen soon disappeared, probably back to her eggs.


How often birds “ give away ” the whereabouts of their nests by

their cries and actions when by simply remaining still and quiet the

enemy, whether feather or not, would suspect nothing and pass on !


Some two hundred yards further away was another pair of

Whinchats, the cock in very handsome plumage.


While sitting by the pond a little while after, watching a pair



