The Lesser 
Redpoll. 
(237) THE BIRD WORLD. 
mistakable trill “ Cher-r-r twit it-'t- 
tr-r-r ” is uttered, one bird after the other 
catching up the refrain, should there be 
more than one pair in the haunt. The 
writer has seen nearly a dozen Redpolls 
trilling in the air together; half-a-dozen 
repeatedly. These exhibitions are most 
frequent in the early morning and 
towards evening. 
For a resident species, the Lesser Red¬ 
poll is a remarkably tardy breeder, as, 
although pairs are formed in April, and 
the nest haunt then patronised, it is use¬ 
less to search for the nests themselves 
before mid-May, whilst fresh eggs are 
general from that date till a month later, 
according to the climate. But even in 
Kent some pairs do not lay till the first 
week of June. Occasionally, a second 
brood is reared late in July, in a different 
nest. 
The site for the nest is a varied one. 
In Wales, hedgerows were favourites, as 
was the case in Bucks, but in the Princi¬ 
pality the writer has seen some nests in 
alders fringing the boisterous trout 
streams right up in the mountain gorges. 
Here he has known the Buzzard, Kestrel, 
Carrion Crow, Dipper, Ring Ouzel, 
Grey Wagtail, Pied Flycatcher, and 
Lesser Redpoll, all nesting within three 
hundred yards. Turning to Kent, the 
site is even more varied. As above re¬ 
marked, the birds seem most partial to 
strips of covert, composed of not too 
big trees, but a few nests are to be found 
at a fair elevation in the forks of thin, 
whippy tall birch “ poles,” where they 
are very hard to reach. Fewer still are 
at a great altitude in elms and on the 
tapering ends of fir and larch boughs. 
More generally, they must be sought in 
the crotch of sapling firs and beeches, 
from nine to twelve feet high, the nest 
then being usually placed in the highest 
available fork suited to its requirements. 
As a further protection, part of the nest 
material is often woven round the 
branches or twigs forming the crotch.. 
The construction of the nest is quite 
as variable as the site, but those in 
hedges are at the same time the smallest 
and neatest. Here are four examples 
selected at random from many notes re¬ 
lating to the same :— 
(1) Rather rough externally, and com¬ 
posed of one or two twigs, wiry roots, 
and a little dried grass, lined copiously 
with white vegetable down, a few minute 
feathers being discernible round the rim. 
This nest was about 7 ft. up in a beech 
sapling. 
(2) Also in a beech sapling, some 9 ft. 
up, but neater than No. 1. Made of a 
good many slender twigs, fibrous rootlets, 
dry grass, and a little of the same 
material in a green state, a few flakes of 
moss, and wholly lined with vegetable 
down. 
(3) About 10 ft. up, in a tiny Scotch 
fir, and the least neat of the trio, being 
very rough externally and made of 
straggling, dried grass stems and a few 
prickly conifer springs, finished off with 
the usual down, some dark grey feathers, 
and a strand or two of black horsehair. 
(4) An exquisitely lovely example from 
a crotch in a hawthorn hedge, about 
30 in. from the ground, built externally 
of bents, dried grass, moss, and a few 
very fine twigs, the whole concern felted 
together with flaked wool, lined with 
snowy vegetable down, brown horse¬ 
hair, rabbit’s flick, and a few feathers. 
The vegetable down is never wanting 
in the lining, and is frequently woven 
into the very foundations of the nest. 
An average nest measures 3^ in. across 
by 2%. in. deep, with an “egg-cup” 
114 in. in diameter and 1% in. in depth. 
Should wet weather prevail during 
nest-building time, many a home is de¬ 
serted, because the lining of down is so 
waterproof that it actually holds rain. 
In exceptional cases this calamity over¬ 
takes nests containing eggs and young. 
The delicately-shelled eggs are usually 
four or five in number, more rarely three 
or six; they are of a bright greenish-blue 
ground, spotted, speckled, and some¬ 
times scratched, chiefly at the blunt end, 
with different shades of reddish-purple 
and purplish-brown. Occasionally a 
few nearly black marks occur, or the 
spots are pale orange-red and light- 
brown. The small size and vivid ground 
colour will readily distinguish these eggs 
—even unidentified specimens in the 
cabinet—from those of allied species. 
