THE INCREASE OF BIRDS OF PREY.
BOTH from Yorkshire and Lancashire eagles have been reported as seen on the moors this summer. The latest news of the birds comes from the Clitheroe Fells, in Lancashire, where a pair of eagles were seen feeding upon a lamb. These were probably young birds of last year, which may have been returning to their original home, or to set up homes as near to it as the old birds would permit. But for several years it has been anticipated that the increase in the numbers of these birds on all the great deer forests of Scotland, where they are now almost universally protected, would probably cause some of the young to make the attempt to extend their nesting range southwards. In that case the natural strongholds which they might be expected to reoccupy would be the cliffs of the Lake Mountains, where they built as lately as the end of the eighteenth century, and the mass of the Pennines, in Westmoreland and North Yorkshire. The name of Arnscliffe, or Eagle's Cliff, as far south as Wharfedale seems to show that the birds once frequented that fine crag on the West Riding Moorlands. In spite of game preservation, never so keenly carried on as now, there is a very general increase in the number of our birds of prey, from the golden eagle to the smallest bird which ever kills a mammal, the red-backed shrike, the destroyer of young field- mice and infant voles. It cannot be doubted that this increase is due to a twofold cause. The first is the extension of the Acts for the protection of birds to Scotland, and the greater uniformity secured in their working, since the schedules and close times were made practically uniform in each of the two sections into which Scotland was divided for the purpose of furthering the working of the Acts. The second is the interest taken in preserving the larger raptores and all the owls by landed proprietors, and in many cases by the occupiers and the general public.
The birds which have benefited most by the Acts are the ospreys. Their nesting places, which have increased in the forests, though of the loch eyries we believe only three are now tenanted, are practically safe in the breeding season, while fewer are reported as shot every year on their way southwards in the autumn or northwards in the spring. Public opinion is entirely against the killer of these birds, who, if he does shoot one, is rather in the position of the slayer of the albatross, or of a cock-pheasant in August. A whole family of ospreys, two old and two young, might have been seen fishing for three weeks on one of the Southern estuaries last autumn, and were left unmolested, partly, no doubt, because a local by-law had postponed wild-fowl shooting till September 1st.
Next to the "fish eagle" in apparent size when on the wing is the common buzzard. This bird, besides obtaining protec- tion all the year round on many large estates in the North, is the object of special Orders in most Southern counties. Its Wide wings and habit of soaring, no less than its long lapses into sluggish repose on some cliff or dead tree, cause it often to be mistaken for an eagle when the distance is not known. It is by preference a bird of the wild uncultivated country in England, though in Germany it abounds in the forests. There is a steady increase of buzzards on Exmoor, where they may constantly be seen by persons stag-hunting, more especially in the wooded valley of the Bark. They are also scattered along the Dartmwr plateau, and nest in places along the cliffs running down the Bristol Channel from Lynton to Hartland Point. They are also fairly common in the Cornish cliffs, and a pair or two may generally be seen on Lundy Island.
The little-preserved, almost gameless, and very open and extensive moors of Cornwall are still, like the cliffs of the tin county, an admirable breeding-ground for some of the rarer raptorial birds. There the merlin is almost common, kestrels swarm in the cliffs, the peregrine falcon nests on almost every noted precipice, and Montagu's harrier may still be seen on certain Cornish moors in the breeding season. This is the last of the three harriers to survive, even as a rare breeding bird, in several Southern counties. One or two marsh harriers' nests are made yearly in Norfolk, where it was formerly so abundant in the marshlands that thirteen were trapped by one duck's nest. But Montagu's harrier, though it is killed off in Surrey and the Home Counties, and has almost disappeared from the Blackdovrn Hills in Devonshire, has reappeared on several large estates both in the East and South-West. There it is carefully preserved, and the writer has had the pleasure for several summers of know ing of the safety of both old and young, even in the early autumn. There is one beautiful small falcon, the preservation of which in some places, and its destruction in others, lie entirely with the owners and lessees of pheasant covers. This is the bobby. It is naturally the falcon of the woods, arriving rather late in the spring, and nesting in country where large trees and woods abound. It comes back with the greatest regularity to its old haunts, and does not travel far from the region of the nest until at least a month after the young birds have flown. Consequently it is very easily protected, and where protected the nests tend to increase, perhaps because, as it is a migrant, the old birds do not drive away the young from their breeding-ground. In places where there are large estates, or an understanding exists between owners, these falcons, which are almost, or quite, harmless to game, the extent of their prey being occasionally a very young partridge, have increased. In others, where the keepers are not taught the difference between them and a sparrow-hawk, they are at once shot or trapped.
Perhaps the most striking improvement in the number of our native raptores due to sentiment is the great increase of the peregrine falcons. Any naturalist who has visited many parts of England, and is really familiar with several, must have noticed this. The number of eyries along the coast, which is the main nesting haunt of the birds, is considerably larger than it was. It is likewise just possible that some nest in the wooded cliffs of Exmoor, in the Lake mountains, and in Wales. There is one known eyrie in the Yorkshire hills, and probably some on Cross Fell, where the raven also breeds. Speaking generally, the raven and the peregrine breed together, and where the nest of one is found that of the other will not be far off. But many peregrine falcons are also regular birds of passage. On their migration, which appears to be quite optional, and dictated by the caprice of the individual bird, they will stay, and remain till the spring, at any place which takes their fancy, or where they see another peregrine to keep them company. Sometimes the " haunt " chosen, where they will stay all the autumn and winter, is an open tract of ground, on which they can command a vast view of all the game moving during the high flights which they affect when seeking food. Among the haunts of this kind where the birds are far more numerous than of old are Salisbury Plain, the Berkshire Downs, Exmoor, what was the Norfolk Fen near Feltwell and in the neighbourhood of Lynn, the Isle of Thalia, and the moors in the neighbourhood of the Trough of Poole. The revived taste for hawking causes falcons to be flown, if only at the lure for exercise, in many such places ; and the frequency with which the tame bird, when it has mounted, is joined by a wild one is remarkable. But what the peregrine prefers, if only it is allowed to indulge its fancy, is to discover and remain by a lake stocked with plenty of wild-fowl. Its local name, "duck- hawk," is most appropriate. The general interest in natural history has led a very considerable number of the owners of lakes to turn them into sanctuaries, or semi-sanctuaries, for the fowl which gather on them, which are either not shot, or only on a few "big days." The peregrines find that this suits them exactly. Recently fashion in sport has taken the form of rearing wild-duck as pheasants are reared, and
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ponds, pools, and lakes are now stocked with them. Around many of these the peregrines are now regularly seen. They do not feed exclusively, and often only very occasionally, on wild-duck, the wood-pigeons being as a rule their quarry. But as the Northern Farmer advised his son "not to marry for money—but go thou where money be," so the peregrines, though they may not wish to eat ducks daily, take care to go where ducks be. Where the ducks are shot, while the falcons have perfect impunity, they will turn up in a friendly way when a shoot is on, on the look out for wounded birds. The writer saw one fly over a butt not twenty yards above the gun and look down in the most cool and impudent way when a regular fusillade was going on round the Lig lake where this happened. It possibly saw the dead ducks round the butt.
The number and almost universal distribution of the various owls, from Holland Park and Chiswick House to the furthest shire's end of England, Scotland, and Wales, are the direct result of educating the farmers and keepers, and of the Wild Birds' Protection Acts. The most curious evidence of their increase is in the number of cases reported, not only from England, but from Ireland and Wales, in which owls, usually the blown • wood owls, have attacked persons and dogs near their nests. From being quite undisturbed, and also on account of their nocturnal habits, which render them indifferent to man at night, when they do see him they become quite fearless, and these attacks are probably due to their gradual loss of respect for every one who is not an owl.
Previous page
