United States or Panama ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At the same time, it seems to be beyond all doubt the fact that huge flocks of woodpigeons reach our shores annually from Scandinavia, and their inroads have had such serious results that it is only by joint action that their numbers can be kept under.
Behold us made companions of water-hens, snipes, goldfinches, woodpeckers, jays, owls, magpies, jackdaws, rooks, starlings, woodcocks, cocks, hens and chickens, turkey-cocks, blackbirds, thrushes, chaffinches, tomtits, jenny-wrens, lapwings, linnets, greenfinches, crossbills, flycatchers, larks, plovers, kingfishers, wagtails, redbreasts, redfinches, sparrows, ducks, fieldfares, woodpigeons and bullfinches!
And this idyll was lived about the beautiful Italian house, with its urns and pilasters; through the beautiful English park, with its elms now with the splendour of summer upon them; in the pleasure-grounds with their rosery, and the fountain where the rose-leaves float, and the woodpigeons come at eventide to drink; in the greenhouse with its live glare of geraniums, where the great yellow cat, so soft and beautiful, springs on Kitty's shoulder, rounds its back, and, purring, insists on caresses; in the large, clean stables where the horses munch the corn lazily, and look round with round inquiring eyes, and the rooks croak and flutter, and strut about Kitty's feet.
The pheasants are at roost in the warmer covers; and the woodpigeons are also perched some in the detached oaks of the hedgerows, particularly those that are thickly grown with ivy about the upper branches. Up in the great beeches the rooks are still and silent; sometimes the boughs are encrusted with rime about their very claws.
The haymakers will tell you that sometimes when they have been standing under a hedge out of a storm a flash of lightning has gone by with a distinct sound like 'swish, and immediately afterwards the wet ground has sent forth a vapour, or, as they say, smoked. Woodpigeons and many other birds seem to come home to woods and copses before and during a storm.
Phillis looked at me once or twice with a little surprise at my silence; but I did not know the words. There we five stood, bareheaded, excepting Phillis, in the tawny stubble-field, from which all the shocks of corn had not yet been carried a dark wood on one side, where the woodpigeons were cooing; blue distance seen through the ash-trees on the other.
The long shadows came stealing out from the sheaves; woodpigeons rose one by one, and flapped off to roost; the western sky was streaked with red, and all the downs and combe bathed in the last sunlight. Perfect harvest weather; but oppressively still, the stillness of suspense.... Life at the farm goes on as usual. We have morning and evening prayers.
One told me, not long ago, that the woodpigeons had got at a little patch of young rape, only a few acres in all, which had been uncovered by the drifting snow, and had laid it as bare as if the earth had never been planted. Seeing what hearty meals the woodpigeon makes, it is not surprising that it should sometimes throw up pellets of undigested material.
Large flocks of woodpigeons are now in every field where the tender swede and turnip tops are sprouting green and succulent. These 'tops' are the moucher's first great crop of the year. The time that they appear varies with the weather: in a mild winter some may be found early in January; if the frost has been severe there may be none till March.
The tiller of the soil, whose business brings him in open competition with the natural appetites of such voracious birds, beasts, or insects, regards his rivals from a standpoint which has no room for sentiment; and the woodpigeons are to our farmers, particularly in the well-wooded districts of the West Country, even as Carthage was to Cato the Censor, something to be destroyed.
Word Of The Day