THE BIRDS OF PARKS.
Nv-HEN Frank Buckland, by special request, took down a London bird-catcher to Aldermaston Park in Berk- shire, to exhibit the art and practice of bird-catching with the clap-net, the expert's report on the bird population of the park was as unexpected as it was discouraging, The old man rose early and walked round the park and among the big trees before the dew was off the ground, when all species of birds are tame and easily seen. The result was that though he saw "plenty of jays and woodpeckers," there were almost none of the hardy song-birds, linnets, goldfinches, chaffinches, and redpoles, which are the main object of the bird-catcher. If he had cared to make a more exhaustive inquiry he would probably have discovered that most of the common birds of hedgerow, garden, copse, and roadside, were absent from, or scarce in, the precincts of a park. The contrast of bird-life in such natural wilderness as the borders of the New Forest groves where the heather of the open ground runs up to the edge of the woodland, and that of such parks as Richmond, Cassio- bury, or any of the five hundred English deer-parks, whose main features are rich grass and great trees, must strike every visitor. On the forest border every thicket and gorse- bush seems alive with birds in the first warm days of spring, and the variety of species is no less than the number of individuals. Whinchats and stonechats, pipits, larks, whitethroats, wood- warblers, redstarts, turtle-doves, yellow-hammers, buntings, wrens, plovers, pheasants, crows, kestrels, all the birds of moor, marsh, wood, coppice, hedge, and thicket, haunt this natural wilderness. In our parks, though the number of birds is considerable, and that of certain kinds often greater than la seen elsewhere, the number of species commonly Been is so limited that we may infer that our English parks as we
usually see them are a much more artificial type of scenery than is generally believed. They are so old, and we are so used to their general features, that we have begun to look upon them as survivals of the primitive woodlands. In nine -cases out of ten they are not, and for this we have the testi- mony of the birds. There are at least a hundred species which would no more choose by free-will to live in a park than a born " commoner " of the New Forest would choose to live in Camden Town. On the other hand, the centuries of " specialisation " which have created our park scenery, pro- ducing much to admire in the form of great and ancient trees, but little to eat (from the birds' point of view) on the
-uniform covering of herbage, have encouraged a limited number of species to become almost native to their inclosed precincts, from which in purely arable counties like Suffolk and Essex they scarcely ever move into the open country round. Chief among these are the green woodpecker, the lesser-spotted woodpecker, the jackdaw, the kestrel, and the stock-dove. Where there is water in the park the wild duck and the coot may be added to the list. Their voluntary confinement to the limits of the park railings varies in proportion as the surrounding country resembles park scenery in character. In most cases it does not and cannot, and in these districts the park birds form a race apart. Of these the jackdaws are the most representative class, and most entirely " parasitic " on the park acreage. Even near London it may safely be assumed that nine jack- daws out of every ten have their home in the hollow oaks of Richmond Park, though the Long Walk in Kensington Gardens and the number of hollow trees left round what were once fine country-houses, now swallowed up in the suburbs, induce odd pairs to remain outside their great colony on Richmond Hill. In Helmingham Park, in High Suffolk, the jackdaws were so entirely confiaed to the old deer park that in villages at a couple of miles distance a jackdaw was never seen, and a jackdaw's egg never taken. Yet the hollows of the old oaks and elms of the park were choked with their nests. As many as three pairs built in a single tree, though from what sources they obtained food for their young was never very obvious. Their nests were finished with the most appropriate material, for in every case the lining was the far of the red- -deer. The hundreds of hollow trees are clearly the attraction -of parks to the daw tribe. They like them as resting-places, and the number of the trees enables the birds to nest in company. Probably a ruined castle or a dilapidated foreign cathedral suit them even better. But as we have few ruined castles to offer them, ruined trees are most acceptable ; and these in our practical country are only found la numbers in the old groves in parks.
There also the stock-dove mainly abides. Its habits seem to be in the transition stage, between those of the cave-haunting rock-pigeon and the emancipated wood-pigeon, which builds by preference on the branches of trees instead of in holes. The stock-dove finds its "half-way-house" in the ruined trees, where it lays its eggs on the decayed wood, with little more than an apology for a nest. In the early morning the " crooning " of the stock-doves inside the hollow trees fills the groves. The bird is a "ventriloquist," or the sound is modified by the caverns and passages by which it finds its way to the outer air, for it is almost impossible to identify the part of the tree from which it proceeds. Though wood-pigeons, and even the migratory turtle-doves, have much increased in numbers during the last ten years, these park-haunting stock- doves are no commoner than of old. Perhaps the reason is that the area of suitable nesting-places does not increase, as in the case of the wood-pigeons and doves, who benefit by the steady growth of preserved woods and plantations Perhaps, also, the jackdaws are bad neighbours and steal their eggs, as they do those of the pheasants. Those in one park in Sussex were known to have stolen seventy pheasants' eggs last year, and no doubt other birds are plundered. Passing through this park in the present spring the writer saw an unfortunate green woodpecker struggling in a trap set in a hollow limb to catch the marauding jackdaws. Both these and the lesser-spotted woodpecker are in many counties scarcely ever seen outside the parks, where, owing to the pro- tection given by recent Acts of Parliament, they are increasing fast. The quantity of old dead wood, dead and dying trees, and swarms of parasitic creatures in the bark, just suits the woodpeckers, who have to go further and fare worse in new or thriving plantations. Too much supervision and lopping of dead limbs should be discouraged in old-established parks. It drives away the few large birds which are really ornamental,
and does not greatly arrest the decay of ancient timber of the picturesque kind,—pollards, old Scotch firs, and chestnuts. In one park, at no great distance from London, two groups of Scotch firs held six nests of the green woodpecker last spring, the whole of the increase being due, it is supposed, to the respect felt by the keepers for the provisions of the Wild Birds' Protection Act. Formerly the woodpeckers were shot at eight, there being an ancient and not altogether unnatural belief that they stole pheasants' eggs. Ants' are the only eggs which the woodpecker seeks on the ground, though it destroys those of tree-haunting insects. Kestrels are a park- hawk, unlike the hobby, and occasionally the sparrow-hawk, which naturally prefer the thicker woodlands. Yet their nests are not so common as might be expected from the abundance of high isolated timber and the swarm of field-mice and beetles in the rough deer-fed herbage in the groves. Wild ducks, which naturally prefer rougher and wilder ground, have become park-dwellers by force of circumstances. They are pro- tected on the lakes, and consequently stay in ever-increasing numbers to breed in the neighbourhood which experience has taught them is the safest, if not the most convenient. At the present time all the ducks are sitting, often in nests placed high up in the hollow crowns of pollards. for the open grassland of the park gives little shelter as nesting-ground. In the evening, towards 6 o'clock, the male birds leave the water to fetch their mates off the nests for an evening walk, and these most conjugal of birds may be seen walking in pairs in all directions under the high timber, enjoying a brief respite from domestic duties.
Partridges bred in open parks are of quite different habits to the normal ways of their race. They scarcely ever remain on the ground on which they pitch, but run for hundreds of yards as soon as they alight. They have no fixed resorts for different hours of the day, but roam from one part to another as the fancy takes them. They " dust " round the roots of the trees where deer or rabbits have worn away the grass, and drink at midday, when they run great distances across the grass to their drinking place. The minor birds which haunt the great trees are all insect-feeders, and mainly dependent on those creatures whose larvm and eggs are found in the bark. In the oldest groves these birds are numerous enough, but there is no such variety of species as in the gardens or on the commons and copse sides. Blue-tits and great-tits, tree-creepers, and the insect-eating birds which neat in or against old trees, such as flycatchers and redstarts, complete the list. Even herons, which rarely leave the shelter of large demesnes, seem to prefer to make their heronry in the woods attached to them rather than in the unfenced groves, though almost the last raven's nest built inland in Southern England was placed in a park in Sussex.
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