The Jester Bird One might imagine the other birds chuckling
at them, slightly contemptuous. Yes, you are the starlings all right : we can see that—if only you could realize how idiotic you are ! In their winter flocks the starlings are often as unconsciously comic as gentlemen assembled together to discuss Important Questions of property and legislature. Now, gentlemen, the next point, h'rrm . .
But the starling is redeemed by nature—or by his wife, perhaps. When the crocuses come out and song springs in his heart, he loses his communal pomposity and be- comes, if not an entirely conscious jester, certainly a bit of a satirist and a very clever fellow, and then we can respect him. With the nesting business to attend to, all his work to be done alone and no other starling or rook to follow, he loses his mass mentality and becomes an individual. He gets up on a chimney-pot between two straw-carrying- journeys, preens himself, sparkles, assures himself that his mate is listening, and begins- Wheeeo ! Anybody about ?
He is always fatuously pleased with himself, but you forgive him that when you hear how well he can imitate a sheep baa-ing, the opening bars of the blackbird's even- song, or a motor-bike. I had a starling as a guest last year who could do the crescendo-racket-diminuendo of a passing motor-bike to the life. He could also laugh, miaow, whistle, cuckoo, and sing the first two or three bars of " God Save the King." I shall know him if he returns this spring, and I shall be disappointed if an inferior bird should occupy the hole below the top window : especially as this one seemed to know the exact time at which I wanted to be wakened, regularly 'as clockwork beginning- Wheeeo ! Anybody— The starling is a very useful bird, an underrated bird, an excellent entertainer, but not too intelligent perhaps. For instance, this particular nest-builder never seemed able to grasp the fact that the stove-pipe running up past the window was hot at the top : all he understood was that this' was the most commanding position for miles around : he dominated all the other birds from there —or he believed he could—learning their songs by heart and then mocking them. But his vanity led him into trouble. Again and again he would alight on the iron rim, only to fling himself away instantly with screams of indignation, his feet scorched and his neck feathers on end with fright. Away he would go, fly furiously round and round, dash off down the valley as though with the excuse that he needed some very special nest-material, whirl back in an hour or so and again alight on the stove- pipe. Two scorchings in succession might put him off for a day or two, but right to the end of the season he was continuing off and on to make a fool of himself in this way.
Quite honestly I believe he knew when someone was laughing at him. He was never frightened of human beings but he would work himself into fearful rages if anyone stared at him or remained in the vicinity of his nest for what he considered an unnecessarily long time. He would sit in the hawthorn hedge with something in his beak, and then he would suddenly scream, drop his tit- bit, and fly off wildly in a passion of resentment.
The poor starling : he seems to nurse some dark tragedy behind his jesting and foolery, as we are assured, by people who write novels about circus-life, that clowns always do. He is the Charlie Chaplin amongst birds and if you watch him you realize that he has, as a matter of fact, got very much the Charlie style of moving about : in short dashes, and skidding round corners, swaggering off as though he feared nothing, then all of a sudden becoming galvanized into frantic action as Charlie does when the " cop " appears.
But if he looks foolish at times there are other times when it is impossible to deny the starling dignity—and astonishing beauty : as when he stands on a green; dewy lawn in the sunlight, glittering in all the colours of the morning as though studded with jewels. No other English bird's plumage compares with his then. He seems to express the spirit of fresh, moist, spring weather in colour, Just as, in a lesser degree, his click-click and churr and wheeo and bubble coming down the chimney express it in sound. The music may not be his own but then, after all, he, is a variety artist, and it is not his business to be original. He earns his position as an honoured guest of the roof by the entertainment he provides, however his
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