A Day in a Hampshire Garden.



307



I leave the birds alone before—there were two insistent call notes :

one the Corn-crake, the other the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.


This Pigmy among the Picidce is always rather a conundrum

with me, as each year in the early spring I can hear him “drumming”

on a favourite dead tree half a mile away across the river. Then

nothing more is seen or heard until one day in the month of June I

hear his persistent “keek-keek” in the apple trees close to the house.

Then, if one is patient and has a good pair of binoculars, one may

discover the charming young family in the upper branches of an old

apple tree or an elm, being fed by the parents. But where they

nest I have never yet discovered.


A few days ago I watched one of the old birds in the usual

apple tree, its beak full of insects, but was unable to trace it, much

as I wished, to its nest-hole, though I rather suspected an old elm.

To-day, hearing the familiar “ keek-keek ” for the first time, I knew

that the young had left the home, and on going out to look for them,

there they were, the young ones very difficult to see among the high

branches of the elm tree.


It was like hearing the voice of a long-lost friend, when one

hot afternoon in June of this year, a loud “ crek-crek ” rung out in

the long grass by the tennis court. It then continued intermit¬

tently day and night, and even the dearest and oldest friend becomes

a trifle wearisome when he repeats the same monotonous tale

continually, as our Corn-crake does. Still it is good to have him

back again with us after several years of absence.


Howard Saunders in his text book on British Birds says

that the call of the Corn-crake can be imitated by rubbing one’s

thumb-nail rapidly along the teeth of a stiff comb, and that by

doing this the Corn-crake may be made to approach quite close to

the performer of the hair comb. So, lonely one moonlight night, I

went forth with my comb and patiently imitated the voice of Crex

pratensis for half an hour or more. But not a feather did the Land¬

rail seem to turn, in answer to my seductive comb-song ; so that

after ruining my thumb-nail and breaking half the teeth of my

comb, I returned home, for the first time in my life having my

faith a little shaken in Howard Saunders.


Finding that the Land-rail was almost always to be heard



