United States or British Indian Ocean Territory ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Professor Ansted includes the Stonechat in his list, but marks it as confined to Guernsey and Sark. There is a specimen in the Museum. WHINCHAT. Pratincola rubetra, Linnaeus. French, "Tarier ordinaire," "Traquet tarier." The Whinchat seems to me never so numerous as the Stonechat, and more local in its distribution during the time it is in the Islands.
Bless me, man, it's good of you, though, sitting up in the chimney there same as a good ould jackdaw, keeping the poor wife company when her selfish ould husband is flirting his tail like a stonechat. The company's going now, Kitty. Will they say good-night to you? No? Have it as you like, bogh. You're looking tired, anyway.
As he stood there in the softening twilight, with his arms raised above his head and his face turned up to the sky, his countenance glowed as Moses' of old. He seemed inspired, transported beyond himself, beyond humanity. He commanded the stone to move in God's name, and because Christ had promised. But the rock stood still, and a stonechat went and perched on it.
Professor Ansted includes it in his list, but gives no locality; and there is no specimen in the Museum. STONECHAT. Pratincola rubicola, Linnaeus. French, "Tarier rubicole," "Traquet pâtre," "Traquet rubicole."
A stonechat he was sure it must be, and he wandered on till he came to a great silver fir, and thought that he spied a pigeon's nest among the multitudinous branches.
And opening the tin box strapped on his back, he showed the day's capture of butterflies, and some belated birds' eggs, the plunder of a bit of common where the turf for the winter's burning was just being cut. 'Goatsucker, linnet, stonechat, said the rector, fingering them. 'Well done for August, Ned. If you haven't got anything better to do with them, give them to that small boy of Mr.
The air becomes itself a cloud, and is coloured recognised as a thing suspended; something real exists between you and the horizon. Now full of sun, and now of shade, the air-cloud rests in the expanse. It is summer, and the wind-birds top the furze; the bright stonechat, velvet-black and red and white, sits on the highest spray of the gorse, as if he were painted there.
The Stonechat is a numerous and regular summer visitant, breeding in all the Islands, but I do not think any remain throughout the winter; of course a few scattered birds may occasionally do so in some sheltered locality, but I have never seen one in the Islands as late as November.
Both in the Vale and on the Cliffs in the higher part of the Island the Stonechat is very common, and the gay little bird, with its bright plumage and sprightly manner, may be seen on the top of every furze bush, or on a conspicuous twig in a hedge in the wilder parts of the Island, but is not so common in the inland and more cultivated parts, being less frequently seen on the hedges by the roadside than it is here, Somersetshire, or in many counties in England.
To the future must belong the task of deciphering some pages of the immense lexicon; for today I will content myself with remembering the Saxicola, or stonechat. On the west, my village crumbles into an avalanche of garden patches, in which plums and apples ripen. Low bulging walls, blackened with the stains of lichens and mosses, support the terraces. The brook runs at the foot of the slope.
Word Of The Day