The forest where trees grow close is abhorrent to most
birds. It is dark and fearsome. Even a small wood of pine, such as that where the wolves live at Whipsnade, is repellent to
most birds. You may find there owls and carrion crow, and jay and magpie and a hawk or two and perhaps pigeon ; but no birds sing ! The singers and the little birds and the ground-nesting birds (even in some cases pheasants) prefer a land that is open or half open : the hedge, the spinney, the brake, the dell-hole, the common, the plain field or sandy spit or pebbly ridge. Forests that are mostly glade, such as the New Forest before the afforestation began, or Epping Forest to-day or many an ill-kept wood on private estates are con- genial to most of the common birds, but even these can scarcely compare with the unclipt hedgerow.
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