CHAPTER XXVIII 

 RED-BACKED SHRIKE 



THE dark leafless trees and pale marsh crops of the winter 

 landscape have gradually melted into a green screen that 

 rises from a green sea. Indeed, April is here, borne on mild 

 yellowish wings April, the month of the blue cuckoo and 

 the red-backed shrike for they often come over the water 

 plains together. Indeed, I have heard the red-backed shrike 

 called the " cuckoo's mate," though wrongly, that name being 

 reserved for the " wry-neck," which is rare on the marshlands, 

 where the red-backed bird is not unfrequent, as you may prove 

 for yourself; for he is often to be seen in early spring with 

 his slow lapping, fulfar-like flight going across the marshes, 

 uttering his whistling note as he makes his journey through 

 the blue to the old hedgerow by the green loke leading up 

 from the marshes. He knows it well, for he has nested 

 there for several years in succession, and there has been no 

 one to disturb him. See how he alights on the familiar old 

 hawthorn "sprag," as the fenmen call a spray. Perchance 

 a brother has sought his old nesting home in the cool 

 retreat of an osier carr a home rich with insect food for 

 the expected family. 



As you go along the loke, gay with yellow broom, you see 

 the pair sitting upon the bending " sprags " against the blue 

 for they never alight or sit in a hedgerow, but always 

 upon some outstretching " sprag," whence they can view the 

 flat wastes around them. 



Up they fly and away they go down the loke to that out- 

 lying " sprag " of bramble ; and if you " hide up " in the hedge 

 you will see one hunt majhap, for the evening shades are 



