Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 24, 2025
Poor Mrs Puss, she nearly broke her back, and she went off to the top of the tool-shed, where the sun shone warmly, and there she set to and licked herself all over, till her glossy coat was smooth again, when she curled herself up in a ball and went fast asleep, very much to the discomfort of a pair of redstarts, who were busy building their nest under the very tile Mrs Puss had chosen for her throne.
Turtle Doves pass over at a great height, or skim across a few feet above the gorse; Redstarts settle for a few minutes and then disappear; Tree-Pipits, Whinchats, and Willow-Warblers pass from tree to tree or flit from bush to bush and all in a north-easterly direction.
Nevertheless it is impossible to listen for any length of time to the redstart, and to many redstarts, without feeling, almost with irritation, that its strain is only the prelude of a song a promise never performed; that once upon a time in the remote past it was a sweet, copious, and varied singer, and that only a fragment of its melody now remains.
Like the swallows, the redstarts are dedicated to the Virgin: such high patronage, however, in this case availed nothing. Neither did Anton's crossbill, which dwelt in the stube, have a much happier fate. Although its master was very fond of it and tended it well, it had, like others of its race, to live in a very small prison suspended but a short way from the centre of the dark paneled ceiling.
In addition to the four pairs of Reed-Buntings, there were in the spring of 1915, six pairs of Whitethroats, one pair of Lesser Whitethroats, four pairs of Willow-Warblers, one pair of Sedge-Warblers, two pairs of Grasshopper-Warblers, one pair of Chiffchaffs, three pairs of Hedge-Sparrows, two pairs of Tree-Pipits, one pair of Skylarks, one pair of Whinchats, one pair of Flycatchers, two pairs of Song-Thrushes, one pair of Blackbirds, one pair of Redstarts, three pairs of Chaffinches, and one pair of Wrens in all, thirty-five pairs, whose young were mainly dependent for their living upon the insect life of that meadow and the ground immediately surrounding it.
Placed on an upright branch, just below the point where five branchlets, a foot or more long, sprang out to shelter, and closely surrounded by seven twigs, of few inches but many leaves, it was a marvel I had been able to see it at all. The redstarts might be lively and restless, but they were good workers.
Up that route we go. On the left as we pass we notice two beautiful nests in saplings, so low that we can look in; redstarts both, and nearly always we find madam at home.
They run along the branches and dart and tumble through the air in fearless chase of invisible flies and moths. All the time they keep unfolding and furling their rounded tails, spreading them out and waving them and closing them suddenly, just as the Cuban girls manage their fans. In fact, the redstarts are the tiny fantail pigeons of the forest.
Before Dodo stopped speaking the whole party were looking where she pointed, Olive using the field-glass. "Those are a pair of Redstarts," she said, "and they are picking up ants. I saw a number of little anthills there yesterday." "A pair?" queried Nat. "They aren't the same color one has yellow spots where the other is red."
"You certainly have to remember the laws of Birdland, as well as their exceptions," answered the Doctor; "but when you have once recognized and named a bird you will carry its picture always in your mind, for the Redstarts that you will see when you are very old men and women, will be like the one that is dancing along the walk now." "Why do they call this Warbler a 'Redstart'?" asked Dodo.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking