and other Notes on Birds at The Vern



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hand, but he is far more independent than most Hummers, and an

absolute devil with some other birds.


He attacked, and would have killed, a Banana Quit I put in his

aviary a few weeks ago, though he never bothered about a Scarlet-

chested Sunbird ( Chalcomitra senegalensis lamperti ) that was with

him ail last summer.


I think he looked more beautiful than ever one late afternoon

towards the end of March. His food had been taken away to be

changed for the night food (of honey and water—with a drop or two

of Haliborange in it) and I suppose he felt hungry. In his aviary there

is a rockery and near the top of this a small pink-flowered rock plant

(I think a Pulmonaria) was in bloom and a small Forsythia overhanging

it and a trickling waterfall;—the afternoon sun was blazing on

these. I was planting bamboos at the other end of the aviary ;

suddenly there was a whirr of wings, and I saw him putting his beak

hist of all into each of those little pink flowers and finally into each of

the Forsythia blooms. Seeing Humming-birds do this to flowers in

-a greenhouse (lovely though it is) somehow doesn’t hold quite the thrill

of watching this bird “ do his stuff ” out of doors in England in the

bright March sunshine.


It is curious how certain supposedly delicate birds will stand our

climate. I think this must depend on their being absolutely fit by the

time cold weather arrives. A Blue-tailed Pitta (. Euchichla cyanura)

has been in an outdoor aviary here through the last three winters.

His toe nails are not quite what they were, and each November he looks

like dying, in what is, I suppose, the usual unusually heavy Pitta

moult, but three weeks later he is so bright and new and shining—and,

the moment the leaves fal 1 , he is revealed so incomparably beautiful

now standing on a rock or log, now crouching facing you in the dying

grass and imagining himself invisible—that you have to stand and stare

at him, though there are a hundred more important things to do.


I brought over a very perfect pair of the little White-headed Marsh

Tyrants (Arundinicola leucocejphala) last spring. I was told they were

delicate (and indeed they had always been considered so), and

must go to a tropical house. Having then no such accommodation

they were sold, but I am convinced they are quite hardy when fit,



