Strange Bedfellows ' An account was given in the latest
number of the Countryman (now edited by the son of the Chancellor of the Exchequer) of an old and maimed elm in which nested the barn, the tawny and the little owl, a kestrel, jackdaw, stock-dove and various tits. These odd bedfellows were in no case disturbed by their neighbours. Well, I have known a tit to nest on the under-side of a buzzard's occupied nest, and I think that in general birds do not foul their own neighbourhood. The land below the nest of the buzzards in question was alive with rabbits, but the birds always flew to a distance to find their favourite food. There are doubtless exceptions to this sort of truce. One of them is the behaviour of the shrike, which in one garden, at any rate, systematically harried every discoverable nest. The tawny owl and the little owl seem to be more or less congenial neighbours, and both are fond of towns. An unexpected place where both are to be seen and heard—and the notes are quite unmistakable—is the immediate neighbourhood of Baker Street Station! Presumably they nest among the chimney-pots.
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