# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 7/Birds in the Border counties

BIRDS IN THE BORDER COUNTIES.
The bird family in the Border counties is well represented. We can number forty-five resident natives, thirty-nine migrant natives, and upwards of twenty occasional visitors.
The wide range of the Border hills, running almost from coast to coast, with their solitary, and in many places precipitous glens—some of them so narrow and deep that the sun cannot shine into them—form a secluded retreat for a number of birds of prey; and over these moorlands and hills all common moorfowl abound. And even the cultivation now spreading so rapidly over many moorlands hitherto considered waste, in our opinion will not render these uplands untenable to the birds that inhabit them for some centuries to come.
From these hills rise the rivers Esk, Tyne, Coquet, and Tweed, whose outlets are the Solway Firth and the German Ocean. And in the lower districts, the finely wooded and tangled banks of these rivers, and many of their numerous tributaries, afford pleasant and sheltered abodes for a pretty numerous variety of song-birds.
The resident birds of prey are the peregrine, or hunting falcon, kestrel, sparrow-hawk, common buzzard, hen-harrier, white or barn owl, tawny owl, little owl, and the long-eared owl; and the merlin and short-eared owl are regular visitors, the former in winter, the latter in summer. The raven is also an inhabitant of the upper fells.
Mr. Wallis, in his “Natural History of Northumberland,” says the golden eagle “formerly had its aërie on the highest and steepest part of the Cheviots,” which must have been Henshole Corry. But these eagles are never seen on the Cheviots now.
We recently explored Henshole Corry, in the heart of the great Cheviot, a favourite and permanent residence of the peregrine falcon and the “lordly raven.” College Water, Northumberland, rises a few miles above the head of the corry, down which it dashes in an almost continual succession of waterfalls, varying in height from ten to thirty feet; and near the summit of the great rocks that almost overhang the water, these birds have for a long period of years had their home.
In our ascent of the glen we saw three ravens swooping and sailing above us at a great height, our attention having been drawn to them by ​their “croak,” which in the solitude of the glen came down upon us like a challenge or warning. As they wheeled and curved above, we thought of an enslaved brother of theirs we had often seen sitting with a clipped wing on a beer barrel in a brewery yard, that spoke provincial English, and cleverly imitated a bugle call.
We spent some hours in the neighbourhood of the corry, anxious for a sight of the falcon, but were disappointed. But the friend who instructed us where to go, has seen falcons in the corry, or near it, repeatedly.
The hooded crow is seldom seen, but the carrion crow and magpie are common over all the district; but they are so much trapped and shot by keepers that they are not very numerous. The seeing of a magpie, or “pyet,” is considered an omen in Scotland, and there is a well-known rhyme descriptive of it:
Ane’s joy,
Twa’s grief,
Three’s a weddin’,
Four’s death.
The rook or corn crow was perhaps never so plentiful as it now is in the Borders. Some thirty or forty years ago, many proprietors had them destroyed or driven from their rookeries, from an impression that they greatly injured the grain crops. This was a mistake that soon became evident, and the birds were again taken into favour; and on many estates, rookeries have for a number of years past been protected as a part of the picturesque. The birds have nearly doubled their number within the last twenty years in some localities; but in very few instances have they been known to nest in the woods from which they or their parents had been previously driven away.
Rooks have made a considerable change in their food within the last twenty years; and we are of opinion that they may have been driven by necessity to this, owing to a large increase in their number and a decrease in field-grubs, caused by the grub-killing manures now so much used by farmers. And from the diet they now seem fondest of, some even think they may have crossed their species with the carrion crow; an improbable idea: and besides, no outward change in bill or body is discernible in the rook, and the carrion crows still live in isolated pairs as hitherto.
That they have made a considerable change in their diet, in Border localities at least, is indisputable; and although their young are eaten in towns and villages, few country people will partake of them, simply because they know how rank much of the food is upon which they feed. They revel over the rankest quarry, whatever the fallen animal; and when a sheep falls on the hills, they have its eyes pecked almost as soon as it ceases to struggle, and should it be the nesting season, the entrails immediately follow. This we have personally witnessed.
Talking with an upland farmer of our acquaintance, we asked him if lambs were ever attacked or disturbed by the birds of prey frequenting the hills. He said he could not say they were, but that the common crows sometimes attacked sickly and weakly lambs, and that when they did so they invariably made their attack on the navel—the tenderest and most assailable part of the animal.
They are also, as gamekeepers know, exceedingly destructive in the nesting season, for they can hunt up the nests of pheasants and partridges as cleverly as boys, and when found the eggs are immediately gobbled. They also in dry seasons, when slugs and worms are scarce, occasionally carry off the young of these birds. In 1859 the spring and early summer were dry, and in that year we knew a preserve from which thirteen live pheasants were carried off by them, and a larger number of partridges. The keeper, in the presence of two people we know, shot several of the rooks when flying off with the young in their beaks. The young were of course very small at the time they were carried away, but were feathered to some extent.
Many years ago, jackdaws in these counties lived almost solely in ruins and openings of precipices, but now they in great numbers nest and rear their young in rookeries.
Only one instance is recorded of a jackdaw having reared its young in an open nest like a rook, and it is in Meyer’s work; wherein it is stated that a gentleman came upon a young bird at the foot of a tree, on which there was a nest, round which a jackdaw was fluttering, apparently concerned about the fallen bird. But this we do not consider positive proof, as no inspection of the nest or remaining young was made. We are able positively to state, however, that some jackdaws have for a number of years built and reared their young in open nests in a Roxburghshire rookery we know; and we have at present eggs and a young bird before us, which we this season abstracted personally from one of these nests. The trees on which the daws build in the rookery we refer to, are spruce firs of pretty full foliage, and this shows the birds’ natural desire for seclusion. One nest only is built on each tree, and it is deeper and more shapely and solid than the rook’s; and a deepish, cosy mixture of wool, horse-tail hair, and moss, forms the interior, the exterior being compactly formed of sticks and moss. In rookeries, as elsewhere, daws also avail themselves for nesting purposes of all suitable tree-holes. They also occasionally build open nests among the ivy clinging to trees. In White’s “Selborne” it is noted that jackdaws have been known to build in rabbit-burrows. We also know some burrows in a rocky bank in which these birds nest regularly.
There are two likely causes why the jackdaws may have become citizens with the rooks. First, the ruined keeps, towers, abbeys, and creviced precipices in which they so long have lived are all, and have been for years, fully inhabited, and as they live to a good old age—till they, in fact, literally grow grey-headed—and have large families every spring, a want of house-room necessitates the young to provide homes for themselves, hence the emigration to “foreign parts.” Next, daws are birds that are strongly attached to ​localities, and by taking up their abode in rookeries they will not require to leave the places with which they may have become familiar.
Here is a thing worthy of note. The jackdaws inhabiting ruins and precipices do not, as a rule, mix with rooks or other birds, whereas those that reside in rookeries adopt the habits of rooks, and scour the fields promiscuously with them. They abstain from carrion, but otherwise they feed like rooks, and a fresh egg to breakfast is not uncommon with them. When about nightfall the long dangerous chains of rooks are sailing homewards, the short sharp “ca,” or, as the Scotch say, “the keckle o’ the kaes” is always distinguishable. The tree-nesting daws are also much shyer than their brethren of the ruins.
It is a common thing in Border towns and villages to see tamed daws stalking and flying about the streets. Some of these are taught to speak. We have heard one cry “Caller haddie!” as distinctly as if it had been a Newhaven fishwife. Boys also delight in moving about with jackdaws, like Zouave cats, perched on their shoulders.
An eccentric, gentle, and somewhat misanthropical man lived in Jedburgh toward the end of last century, whose only associate during the later years of his life was a jackdaw. For some years he was never seen without this bird, either flying after him along the streets or roads, or sitting near him when he remained stationary. The bird was killed by a thoughtless person, and after its death he never again appeared in his old haunts, and he died shortly afterwards. His tombstone was pointed out to us in Jedburgh churchyard. It is much decayed, and most of the letters are obliterated, but the following sentence may still be nearly all traced—and it was put there, we believe, at the dying request of the deceased:
May he who removes this stone die the last of his race.
The tamed daws are generally got from ruins or precipices, often at great personal risk. We recollect being lowered, when a boy, over a precipice 150 feet high in search of them. We had a rope fastened below our arm-pits, by which we were let down to the nests, from which we procured thirteen birds, and for which the three big boys who worked the rope handsomely allowed us one bird—the puniest in the lot. It was the nearest approach to the dance upon nothing we hope ever to have. But some boys think nothing of the descent, and would willingly be towed over the highest precipice for a penny.
The highest class of song-birds in the district we write of are the song-thrush, missel-thrush, blackbird, redbreast, whitethroat, grey linnet, green linnet, wren, willow-wren, goldfinch, bullfinch, and skylark. We have also heard the blackcap, and the woodlark is occasionally seen; but these two fine birds are rare.
Bullfinches have increased considerably in some localities within the last ten years, as have also the golden-crested wrens. Goldfinches, however, the prettiest of all British song-birds, have almost disappeared within the last twenty years. In some orchards we know, their nests were comparatively numerous twenty years ago, and now a nest is a rarity. With the aid of bird-lime and a good call-bird fanciers, still procure a bird now and then. But we predict that within a very few years this fine bird will not be found on the Borders.
All the ornithologists and general naturalists, English and Scotch, that we have read with reference to the fieldfare, class it as a bird of passage, that leaves these islands in spring and returns in autumn. Meyer, in his masterly work, says it is a native of the sombre forests of Europe, that it comes to Britain in November, and that “very few instances of the bird remaining to breed have been authenticated.” Knapp, one of the most correct of local observers, in his “Journal of a Naturalist,” says that he every year noticed a few fieldfares that had detached themselves from the main flock, and he adds, “I have reason to apprehend that these retreats are occasionally formed for the purpose of forming nests, though they are afterwards abandoned without incubation.”
Fieldfares are resident natives, however, in the Border counties, and schoolboys know their nests and eggs as well as they know those of the hedge-sparrow. We have known their nests from boyhood, an incident having occurred in our early years that made us ever afterwards know the nest of a fieldfare when we came upon it.
In a nesting season, when walking along the edge of a rugged glen, we noticed what we thought a nesting thrush dart off. We found the nest—a ground one—near the top of the precipice, and with difficulty reached it. It had young, well feathered, and as we were at the time on the look-out for a nest of thrushes, we at once bonnetted them. With some exultation we sped off to show our prize to an ornithological son of St. Crispin, who, like many of his fellow cobblers, was great on birds and politics; but our face fell as soon as we saw him look into our cap.
“Weel, my man,” said he, “what d’ye think ye’ve in your bonnet?”
“Mavises,” we timidly uttered.
“Mavises! Losh, man, to think I’ve spoken sae muckle about birds t’ye, an’ you no to ken the young anes o’ a feltie when ye see them,”—feltie being the local name for fieldfare.
A nesting season has seldom passed since our colloquy with the man of black thumbs in which we have not seen the nests of fieldfares, and we might have found them every year had we desired. We have handled the young birds by the side of the nests repeatedly, and, while doing so, have seen the alarmed parent birds flitting from tree to tree around us, uttering their low harsh “chir-r.” This single sound—we cannot call it a note—when alarmed, they repeat hurriedly. Strange, Bechstein says, their song consists of “a harsh, disagreeable warble.” There is more melody, and as much diversity, in the caw of the rook. But the young fieldfare (a percher) has, like a number of young birds, a sweet prolonged chirrup.
The fieldfare builds often in the main cleft ​of large trees. We have seen nests often in the first cleft of detached chestnuts. Nests are also common in Scotch-fir plantations, where they are easily found. Ground nests are never numerous, and they are always built about precipices.
The nest is about the size of the thrush’s, but shallower, the principal material of which is the stalks, not the blades, of dead bent-grass; and the nest is sometimes betrayed by the protruding of some of the grass-stalks from the cleft in which it is placed. The inside is made of soft grass and hair.
Nest of the Fieldfare.
We have at present an egg and a young fieldfare, both taken from the same nest, in Roxburghshire, in the beginning of May last. The bird is now nearly full-grown, and is very tame, perching occasionally on our head, to which he flies of his own accord. He at times shows unmistakable symptoms of pleasure when being spoken to in a kindly manner—gently fluttering his wings and faintly giving his fledgling chirrup. When hungry, he now utters the harsh chirr of the old bird.
We have shot fieldfares in May and June in Berwickshire, and in July, 1860, we saw numbers of them in the uplands of Peeblesshire. We have seen them in all the summer months in Roxburghshire, and in Northumberland they are resident natives. These birds also attack the wild cherries every season, generally about the beginning of August, in a garden well known to us in a retired part of one of these counties.
The following may be noted as the aristocracy of the regular, frequent, and occasional visitors of these localities: the osprey, seagull, wild goose, goosander, shovellerduck, teal, goldenplover, ringplover, pewit, curlew, woodcock, hoopoe, cuckoo, landrail, and kingfisher. There is also a heronry at the base of “dark Ruberslaw,” in Roxburghshire, and herons are numerous, the supply of minnows and trouts in the brawling streams of the Border yielding abundance of food for them.
J. S.