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No one will be surprised if he does not return from the reed-bed, now full of prime water-fowl, before a week has elapsed. It storms with duck, snipe, and herons, the last only valued for their feathers; even pelicans are to be met with, and an Egyptian ibis has been shot there. It is said a flamingo was once seen.
They had emigrated to the rick-yard near the village inn; many of the stoats and weasels, finding provender scarce, had followed in their footsteps; and Brighteye and his kindred, with the water-shrews, the moorhens, and the coots, were unmolested in their wanderings both by night and day. The vole's favourite reed-bed was now seldom visited.
The reed-bed, though partly submerged, still yielded the vole sufficient food; and to reach it straight from his home he had to pass through the shallows, which extended for a considerable distance up-stream and down-stream from the gravelly stretch immediately outside the reeds.
The males arrive early in May before the new growth of reeds has attained any considerable height, and each one has its own position in the reed-bed, sings there, and throughout the whole period of reproduction actively resists intrusion on the part of other males.
He was swimming one night as usual into the quiet water by the reed-bed, and, indeed, had entered a narrow, lane-like opening among the stems, when he felt a quick, powerful movement in the water, and saw a mysterious form turn in pursuit of him, and glide swiftly away with a mighty effort that caused a wave to ripple through the reeds, while the outer stalks bent and recoiled as if from the force of a powerful blow.
This put me on the right scent, and I went to the place as soon as I could, and found parts of it a regular paradise for Reed Warblers, and there were a considerable number there, who seemed to enjoy the place thoroughly, climbing to the tops of the long reeds and singing, then flying up after some passing insect, or dropping like a stone to the bottom of the reed-bed if disturbed or frightened.
Lutra sometimes noticed, while she drifted with the current, that the scent of her kindred lay strong at the surface not far from her "holt." One still, moonlit night the scent indicated that several full-grown otters had at intervals come from the trout-reaches down-stream, and had landed in a reed-bed at the lower end of the pool.
The buck "drummed" again, then the rustling "pat, pat" of the rabbits ceased in the wood, and one by one the adult voles feeding in the reed-bed slipped silently into the shallows and disappeared. Brighteye was loath to relinquish the juicy rush that he held in his fore-paws, but the signs of danger were insistent.
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