on the Nesting of the Whinchat.



29



my deadly enemies, the Tawny Owls ; they snipped off one leg of the

male Whinchat, cut a wad of skin and feathers out of the back of a

hen Wheatear, killed outright my only two hen Snowfinches and

then retired, with their usual discretion, before I could avenge my

dead. O happy London aviarist ! if you only knew what it is to be

raided by Hawks and Owls and Magpies and Stoats and Weasels

and Moles and Fieldmice you would indeed call yourself thrice

blessed ! I nursed the poor victim and in due course released him ;

for a week or more he pottered about the garden, apparently little

the worse for the amputation, and then he drifted away to fresh

fields and pastures new.


I obtained another male Whinchat and we made a fresh

start. This male was in fine adult plumage and soon began to sing

and to flirt with the most brightly coloured female. With drooped

and quivering wings, tail expanded and somewhat raised, and head

thrown backwards he would pose before and sing to the female,

showing off’ his handsome tan waistcoat and the contrasted areas of

pure white on the wings and tail to perfection. I never realised

before what an extremely handsome little bird a male Whinchat is.

On the 12th June the breeding hen was carrying nesting material.

It will be necessary to distinguish between these two hens in order

to make my story intelligible, so we will call this one “Beauty,”

because she possessed the greatest gift of the Gods ; the other we

will call “The Flirt” because she seemed most anxious to win the

affections of the male and used to follow him about with quivering

wings. The male assisted in the construction of the nest and on the

19th Beauty was missing and had presumably commenced to sit. The

nest was on the Common, under a tuft of heather and close to the

wooden panelling of the aviary, but so well concealed that it was

impossible to look into it without removing the heather, in the very

roots of which it was embedded.


Now we come to the queer part of my story. A few days

later The Flirt was also missing. Where was The Flirt’s nest ? I

had seen no pairing, no building—yet she must have a nest some¬

where. Now the Common was not what you would call extensive —

perhaps some nine feet by five feet—but looking for a Whinchat’s

nest is at -all times rather like hunting for a needle in a bundle of



