X 



AT LIGHT 



I WOKE early on the first day of the year to hear 

 the ring dove, the chaffinch, and the nuthatch 

 with the redbreast, of course bring in the light 

 of a new year. It is worth doing that ! Soon after 

 full light, I heard the ring dove in the copse across the 

 meadow, and the sharp " whit, whit ! " of the nut- 

 hatch came from the oak tree just outside my 

 window, and the metallic " pink, pink ! " of the 

 chaffinch as he dropped into the roadway from the 

 same oak or a spruce fir hard by. These two sounds 

 are heard at the same spot in Sussex almost every 

 winter morning; the chaffinch roosts in the spruce 

 fir, and the nuthatch may roost in a hole I can see 

 in a dead limb of the oak he is in that tree 

 punctually almost every morning at this time. 

 Later, when I went out, I heard another ring dove 

 cooing in the spinney across the road, where a missel- 

 thrush was singing. 



There are winter mornings when one is sure to 

 hear a missel-thrush bright, clear mornings, how 

 serenely still ! I expected a missel-thrush on the 

 morning of January i, and there it was before mid- 

 day in good song. The ring dove cooed whilst the 

 grass was still white and crisp with frost, and I 



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