Cantankerous Thrushes
Two examples within the week have to be recorded of the strange effect of snow on the moral character of the missel thrush. In one garden a great hubbub was heard, and was found to be the joint cry of the hunter and hunted : a missel thrush was savagely attacking a sparrow : and it was thought till a nearer sight was obtained that the thrush was a hawk. A much more persistent and highly detailed record of the exclusive greed of a missel thrush has been watched day after day in another garden. There is a much-berried bush of cotoneaster, whose fruit does not become edible till late in January. On this perches a missel thrush from dawn to dusk, and if any other bird dares to approach, it is attacked physically and with clamour. Nor is this all. A tray of food is usually placed on the top of a garden wall, and it is popular with a good many varieties of bird, though the garden is on a high road. The missel thrush is a jealous guardian of this too, and again and again routs any birds that approach it. A second food supply is now offered in another part of the garden ; but even at this feast the other birds are not left at peace. The missel thrush will screech with anger at them, and has been seen to dive at a whole bunch of starlings and, other birds grouped near it. They all fled incontinent from the dictatorial Hun, who is known by a dictator's name. The thrush appears to be quite without fear, for he approaches mankind without sign of the usual nervousness. The one thing said in his favour is that he seems to be rather more tolerant of robins than other birds, and is more highly offended by starlings than sparrows. The missel thrush, if rarely as pugnacious as these incidents sug- gest, has certainly a very highly developed sense of territory, and will fly noisily at even so formidable a bird as a carrion crow that dares to approach its nest too nearly. Such pug- nacity is wholly admirable ; but this January greed and ill- temper has no parental excuse or justification.
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