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قراءة كتاب Bird Watching

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‏اللغة: English
Bird Watching

Bird Watching

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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one bird to another, and often swell into a full chorus of several together. Deeper now fall the shadows, "light thickens," till one catches, at last, only "dreary gleams about the moorland," as now here, now there, the wings are flung up—showing the lighter coloured inner surface—till gradually, first one and then another, or by twos or threes or fours, the birds fly off into the night, wailing as they go. But this note on the wing is not the same as that uttered whilst running over the ground. The ground-note is much more drawn out, and a sort of long, wailing twitter—called the "clamour"—often precedes and leads up to the final wail. In the air it comes just as a wail without this preliminary. But it must not be supposed that all the birds perform these antics simultaneously. If they did the effect would be more striking, but it is generally only a few at a time over a wide space, or, at most, some two or three together—as by sympathy—that act so. The eye does not catch more than a few gleams—some three or four or five—of the flung-up wings at one time over the whole space. It is a gleam here and a gleam there in the deepening gloom. "Dreary gleams about the moorland"—for warren, here, purples into moor and moor saddens into warren—is, indeed, a line that exactly describes the effect.

These birds, then, stand or sit about during the day in their chosen places of assemblage, and, if not occupied in catching insects or preening themselves, they are dull and listless. But as the evening falls and the air cools, they cast off their lassitude, think of the joys of the night, there is dance and song for a little, and then forth they fly. Sad and wailing as are their notes to our ears, they are no doubt anything but so to the birds themselves, and as the accompaniment of what seems best described by the word "dance" may, perhaps, fairly be called "song." The chants of some savages whilst dancing, might sound almost as sadly to us, pitched, as they would be, in a minor key, and with little which we would call an air. Again, if one goes by the bird's probable feelings, which may not be so dissimilar to the savage's—or indeed to our own—on similar occasions "song" and "dance" seems to be a legitimate use of words.

But whatever anyone may feel inclined to call this performance—"dance" or "antics" or "display"—it varies very much in quality, being sometimes so poor that it is difficult to use words about it without seeming to exaggerate, and at other times so fine and animated, that were the birds as large as ostriches, or even as the great bustard, much would be said and written on the subject. Moreover, so many variations and novelties and little personal incidents are to be noticed on the different occasions, that any general description must want something. I will therefore give a particular one of what I witnessed one afternoon when the dancing was especially good. It was about 5.30 when I got to the edge of the bracken, which to some extent rings round the birds' place of assembly.

"A drizzling rain soon began, and this increased gradually, but not beyond a smart drizzle. The birds, as though stimulated by the drops, now began to come down from where they had been standing on the edge of the amphitheatre, and to spread all over it till there were numbers of them, and dancing of a more pronounced, or, at least, of a more violent kind than I had yet seen, commenced. Otherwise it was quite the same, but the extra degree of excitement made it much more interesting. It was, in fact, remarkable and extraordinary. Running forward with wings extended and slightly raised, a bird would suddenly fling them high up, and then, as it were, pitch about over the ground, waving and tossing them, stopping short, turning, pitching forward again, leaping into the air, descending and continuing, till, with another leap, it would make a short eccentric flight low over the ground, coming down in a sharp curve and then, at once, même jeu. I talk of their 'pitching' about, because their movements seemed at times hardly under control, and, each violent run or plunge ending, in fact, with a sudden pitch forward of the body, the wings straggling about (often pointed forward over the head) in an uncouth dislocated sort of way, the effect was as if the birds were being blown about over the ground in a violent wind. They seemed, in fact, to be crazy, and their sudden and abrupt return, after a few mad moments, to propriety and decorum, had a curious, a bizarre effect. Though having just seen them behave so, one seemed almost to doubt that they had. One bird that had come to within a moderate distance of me, made three little runs—advancing, retiring, and again advancing—all the time with wings upraised and waving, then took a short flight over the ground, describing the segment of a circle, and, on alighting, continued as before. Half-a-dozen others were gathered together under a solitary crab-apple tree—a rose in the desert—less than 100 yards off, and both with the naked eye and the glasses I observed them all thoroughly well. One of them would often run at or pursue another with these antics. I saw one that was standing quietly, caught and, as it were, covered up in a little storm of wings before it could run away and begin waving its own.


Dancing of Great Plovers in Autumn.
Dancing of Great Plovers in Autumn.

"This and the general behaviour of the group makes it evident that the birds are stimulated in their dance-antics by each other's presence. For these little chases were in sport, clearly, not anger. Very different is the action and demeanour of two birds about to fight. This is by far the finest display of the sort that I have yet seen, and must be due, I think, to the rain, which the birds obviously enjoyed. They had been quite dull and listless before, but as soon as it fell they spread themselves over the plateau, and the dancing began. It was not only when the birds threw up their wings and, as one may say, let themselves go, that they seemed excited. The constant quick running and stopping whilst the wings were folded appeared to me to be a part—the less excited part—of the general emotion out of which the sudden frenzies arose. There was also the usual vocal accompaniment. The wailing note went up, and was caught and repeated from one part to another at greater or lesser intervals, the whole ending in flight as before."

When I first saw these dances I thought that they arose out of the excitement of the chase—that chase of moths or other insects flying low over the ground which I have noticed—that they were hunting-dances, in fact. I thought the motions of the wings were to beat down the escaping quarry, and I confounded the little springs and leaps into the air, arising out of the dance and being a part of it, with those other ones made with a snap and an object not to be mistaken; but I soon discovered my error. Insect-hunting is only indulged in occasionally, when a wandering moth or so happens to fly by. The general hunt which I have described was incident, I think, to an unusually large number of insects in the air over the warrens, by which not only a band of starlings—as before mentioned—was attracted, but, afterwards, swallows and martins. On such occasions, dancing might conceivably grow out of the excitement of the chase, so as to appear a part of it, but though the two forms of excitement may sometimes intermingle, the

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