160 Wild Life in Wales 



I have never detected robbing a nest ; but they are such 

 blood-thirsty little creatures that I feel sure they would not 

 resist a baby bird, or an egg, if they considered the risk of 

 attack by the parents might safely be disregarded. Shrews 

 are, however, amongst the most timid of all our animals, 

 and are always chary of quitting their well-paddled runs, 

 and they will hardly, wittingly, incur the anger of even a 

 Willow Wren. Probably a worse foe to ground nests than 

 all of these put together, as well as a deadly enemy to all 

 " mice " and their young, is, however, the common Mole. 

 It is part of this creature's daily business to hunt for and 

 prey upon such things, and I have time and again seen a 

 nest undermined and robbed by it. Not long ago I actually 

 caught one in the act of devouring a half-grown Thrush, 

 which it had dragged through a hole bored into the nest 

 (and that without upsetting the latter from its site), my 

 attention having been drawn to it by the commotion the 

 old birds were making. But Moles seem, sometimes, rather 

 to shun railway sides, being possibly frightened by the 

 shaking of passing trains, or kept off by boundary ditches, 

 and the extra security thus attained may perhaps offer an 

 additional attraction to other animals to resort thither. 



Of the nests of habitual ground-building birds, the 

 railway sides both east and west of Llanuwchllyn are usually 

 prolific : and that it is not without good reason that such 

 " protected areas " are resorted to, I had two very striking 

 demonstrations. Scenes not without an element of comedy 

 to an onlooker, but full of grim tragedy for the poor 

 sufferers. In one case a sheep was literally " making hay " 

 of a Pipit's nest, munching away at it in stoic disregard of 

 the remonstrances of the distracted owner, who occasionally 

 actually perched upon the sheep's back to scold it ! In the 

 other, a Yellow Wagtail was the aggrieved party, and a 

 Goose the aggressor ; and before I realised what was 

 happening, or had time to interfere, only enough remained 

 of one of the half-fledged young to determine their identity. 

 In this case the parent birds uttered their complaints from 

 the safer elevation of a telegraph wire, and in hovering over 

 the head of the carnivorous goose. 



