At Home with Wild Nature 



Anyway, poor old Philip, as we named him, failed to 

 secure a mate, and remained a forlorn bachelor until 

 the late summer, when he adopted two little orphans of 

 his own species and brought them every day into my 

 kitchen to be fed. For a time he appeared to be quite 

 happy over his self-imposed task, then a regrettable 

 thing happened. His adopted children very ungrate- 

 fully turned against him and would not even tolerate his 

 presence inside my house. This was too much for 

 human flesh and blood to bear, so I drove the young 

 blackguards off, and poor old Philip once more resumed 

 his position of favoured guest in my establishment. 



Birds not only select odd quarters sometimes in 

 which to build their nests, but utilize strange materials 

 in their construction. I have seen the bulky home of a 

 heron made entirely of old wire, and quite recently a 

 pair of pigeons somewhere in the West End of London 

 built a nest of fugitive hairpins picked up in the streets. 

 Some years ago whilst studying seafowl life on the 

 Saltee Islands off the Wexford coast I came upon a shag 

 or green cormorant's eggs lying in an eyrie made 

 entirely from the backbones of dead rabbits. 



The members of non-nest building species, such as 

 brown owls and kestrels, habitually utilize the old 

 homes of carrion crows, rooks, and wood pigeons. I 

 have known a song thrush to renovate and line the old 

 nest of a blackbird with mud and bits of decaying wood 

 and then lay a clutch of eggs in it, also an instance of 



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