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Updated: June 15, 2025
There are few land-birds on Canvey Island, because there are few trees. Some greenfinches, a whinchat or two, almost no pipits or larks, and very few sparrows. The shore-birds are numerous and increasing, for the Essex County Council strictly protect all the eggs and birds during the breeding season.
I have seen flocks of wood-pigeons immensely larger than any here; but then it was only occasionally. They came, passed over, and were gone. Here the flocks, though not very numerous, seem always to be about. Sparrows crowd every hedge and field, their numbers are incredible; chaffinches are not to be counted; of greenfinches there must be thousands. From the railway even you can see them.
Divided between the two nets are the cages of the decoy-birds Linnets and Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Yellowhammers, Buntings and Ortolans sharp-eared creatures which, on perceiving the distant passage of a flock of their own kind, forthwith utter a short calling note. One of them, the Sambe, an irresistible tempter, hops about and flaps his wings in apparent freedom.
Flocks composed of Yellow Buntings, Cirl Buntings, Corn-Buntings, Chaffinches, Greenfinches, etc., can be observed round the farmsteads or upon arable land; small flocks of Reed-Buntings take up their abode on pieces of waste land and remain there until the supply of food is exhausted, deserting their feeding ground only towards evening when they retire to the nearest reed-bed to pass the night; flocks of Hawfinches visit the same holly-trees day after day so long as there is an abundance of berries on the ground beneath; and so on.
Jenner Weir turned a female canary into his aviary, where there were male linnets, goldfinches, siskins, greenfinches, chaffinches, and other birds, in order to see which she would choose; but there never was any doubt, and the greenfinch carried the day. They paired and produced hybrid offspring.
"Don't you know that all the game, and all the turf, and all the bog, and all the gravel, and all the furze on this common belong to the Right Honourable Earl Spencer?" "And all the blackbirds, and all the greenfinches, and all the sparrows, and all the tomtits too, I suppose?" replied I. "To be sure they do and I'm common-keeper. Now you'll give me up that hare immediately."
He then peered round his heap of grass, but there were no greenfinches near; they had come out from the hedges, and the starling had come from the hollow pollard where he had a nest, but all had settled a long way off from his hiding-place. Bevis was very angry, so he stood up, and pulled his bow with all his might, and let the arrow fly into the air almost straight up.
The grass stood high above me, and the shadows of the tree-branches danced on my face. I looked up at the sky, with halfclosed eyes to bear the dazzling light. Bees buzzed over me, sometimes a butterfly passed, there was a hum in the air, greenfinches sang in the hedge.
Above, on the bank, another species of willow-herb has died down to a short stalk, from which springs a living branch, and at its end is one pink flower. A dandelion is opening on the same sheltered bank; farther on the gorse is sprinkled with golden spots of bloom. A flock of greenfinches starts from the bushes, and their colour shows against the ruddy wands of the osier-bed over which they fly.
Sweetly the greenfinches were calling in the trees: afar the voice of the cuckoo came over the oaks. By the side of the living water, the water that all things rejoiced in, near to its gentle sound, and the sparkle of sunshine on it, had lain this sorrowful thing.
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