Hubert D. Astley—Avicultural Notes



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I have a male Golden-eye mated to a female Tufted Duck. Last

year she successfully concealed her nest and hatched out her brood of

•eight or nine, but as usual all disappeared, one after the other. One

tries to throw food to these Ducks with young ones, but either they

at once swim hard in an opposite direction, or adult Ducks assemble

and devour it. The only species I could induce to be sensible and

recognize one was wishing to help them to rear their young, has been

the Shelduck. I have four Bar-headed Goslings, hatched under a hen.


In the aviary a pair of Ked-crested Grey Cardinals had three young

ones, but they were taken by something. That is the worst of a mixed

collection. My Diamond Doves suffer likewise. Three pairs have had

nests, and each time the young have been killed, neither can I discover

the culprit; so that I consider I have lost at least six Diamond Doves

this spring. One day I saw a Budgerigar on one of the nests, doing its

best to turn out the eggs, and although I scared it away it was

apparently successful, for two days after the eggs had disappeared.


On 3rd June a boy brought me a fully fledged young Lesser Spotted

Woodpecker, which he had picked up in the road, possibly injured.

A charming little bird. Perhaps it had tried to fly across the road on

leaving the nest, and had fallen short. I fed him at first on fly-

chrvsalises, opening his beak for the purpose, but he did not live.

I say “he” because the wish was father to the thought ! The female

lacks the red on the head, which is such an additional beauty to the

black and white barred plumage. This little bird seemed such a pigmy

by the side of my Golden-headed Woodpecker from the Himalayas.

On the aviary lawn the Noah’s ark is cosmopolitan. Amongst the coops

and Bantam runs containing Ducklings of three or four species, young

Ho-kis (eared pheasants), Bar-headed Goslings, Satyr Tragopan chicks,

and Yokohama Bantams, there stroll white Peafowl and two Duiker

Antelopes and Demoiselle Cranes, following one for tit-bits. The

Trumpeter had to be shut up, as he showed signs of pecking the baby

Tragopans, and he is absolutely fearless of attacks from hens, for he

waves his wings at them and quite dismays them.



