STARLING VERSUS SWIFT.
Even the hawk-like swifts have not been exempt. A strange tale on this theme reaches me from a country rectory. A pair of swifts, as usual, are building in a cottage roof. Across the way a starling sits on a chimney observing their goings, and from time to time, as a favourable opportunity offers, dives down on the swift and knocks it over on to the ground. Six such successful attacks have been witnessed by observers. The swift is felled, and generally manages after a pause to rise from the ground again of his own efforts; but has sometimes been picked up and given a send off. It is a queer example of animosity ; and the tactics arc quite new to me. Presumably, the starling has its eye on the swift's nesting place ; but if so the method of eviction is peculiar. It is commonly said that swifts cannot rise unaided from the ground ; but this is only so if the surface is unusually smooth and flat, when the long wings and short legs may be a fatal handicap.
Previous page
