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The presence of sitting game birds may always be known by the increased size of their droppings around places where they go to drink. I have known a Red Grouse sit so long and closely on a clutch of addled eggs that she became almost too weak to fly.
Some birds may be caught on their nests even when in quite open situations, and handled without being made to forsake. Last spring my brother and I met with a very curious case of a Chaffinch which did not object to being caught on her nest by a boy, yet would not allow us to photograph her. We tried morning, noon, and night in vain. I have known a bird of this species have every feather in her tail pulled out, whilst sitting on her eggs, by a mischievous lad who tried to catch her, and yet bring off her young.
Her nest was so insecurely affixed against the trunk of a huge tree that it began to topple over directly she commenced to sit, and would undoubtedly have fallen had not my brother fastened it up by driving a pin or two through its side into the bark of the tree.
Tree creeper
I remember a case of a Tree Creeper being caught on her nest, situated behind a piece of loose bark hanging to the trunk of a lightning-struck elm, and conveyed half a mile in a man's jacket pocket in order that she might be shown to a little sick boy who took an intelligent interest in birds. Upon being returned, she resumed her duties towards her young as if nothing whatever had happened. We afterwards photographed one of her young ones as it left the nest and began to climb up the bark of the tree in which it had been bred.
Bullfinches sit very closely, as may be judged from the vignette below, which has been made direct from the original photograph. Gray Wagtails are also faithful birds in this respect. In the beginning of June, 1895, I found the nest of one of these birds in a little ghyll in Westmorland, and an illustration of it appeared in my work on "British Birds' Nests." At the end of the same month of the present year we revisited the place, and found the old nest of 1895 still intact, one which had been used in 1896 a yard or two higher up the stream, and a new one, upon which the bird was then sitting, a few feet higher still. The nest was too far back in a dark horizontal fissure in the limestone rock to allow us to photograph the bird on it, so we put her off, and, drawing it a few inches out, went away. As she did not appear to resent our interference with her nest, we pulled it a bit further out still the next day, and on the third reflected sufficient light upon her by the aid of a looking-glass to enable the accompanying picture to be made. This done, we put it back in its original position, and the Wagtail ultimately hatched her eggs and reared five young ones.
Early in the morning of the day on which the Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee we started out to photograph a Red-backed Shrike sitting on her nest. She was much shyer than we anticipated, but after a patient wait of four and a half hours we succeeded in making the study on p.203 by hiding the camera and photographer, and signalling to the latter by a low whistle when the bird was seen, with a field-glass, to go to her nest. It is of interest to us from the fact that the photograph was taken just as her Majesty left Buckingham Palace on her historic procession.
Bullfinch on nest
Gray wagtail on nest
The male birds of many species feed their mates whilst they are engaged in brooding. I remember hiding up one evening with a Yorkshire gamekeeper in a small wood for a cock Sparrow-hawk which he said would be sure to come and feed the hen sitting on her nest close by. We located ourselves amongst some stunted birch trees in a place well above the nest, and commanding a good view of nearly every winged approach to it, and waited. In a while a very curious looking object came sailing down the ghyll just above the tree tops; there was a loud bang, and it literally came apart, one half falling obliquely with a thud to the ground, and the other disappearing, as if by magic, round the shoulder of a small hill. I picked up the portion which we had seen fall, and it proved to be a young Peewit plucked almost bare, and still warm. The sound of the keeper's unsuccessful shot put the hen off her nest. We waited until she returned, however, to receive what my companion considered a fatal wound, but, although badly hurt, the bird was actually sitting upon her nest next day, and when killed the devoted creature had dried blood running the full length of her tail and wing quills.
Cock Robins feed the hens assiduously whilst they are sitting, and in return for their care receive a low twitter of thanks.
Most people are aware of the fact that in nearly all clutches of House and Tree Sparrows' eggs one differs widely from the rest in regard to the character of its markings.
Clutch of tree sparrow's eggs
Shrike on nest
Last spring I succeeded in finding and identifying by the black patch on the chin and throat of the female a nest belonging to the latter species. It was situated in a hole in a pollard willow, and when I first discovered it contained only one egg - the one with the large blotches upon it in the illustration of a clutch of Tree Sparrows' eggs. I visited the nest again exactly a week later, and was surprised to find that it had six more eggs in it, all very similar to each other, but differing widely from the first one laid.
My observations proved that in this case, at any rate, the egg, unlike the rest of those in the clutch in the character of its markings, was laid first, and that the species can upon occasion lay at least one more egg than it has been given credit for even by our greatest authorities on British ornithology, who place the outside limit of a clutch of Tree Sparrow's eggs at six in number.
It is surprising how much is expected of a man who takes an interest in birds and their eggs by people who know little or nothing of the subject themselves. They will ask him to identify all sorts of eggs with certainty without a scrap of evidence on their part saving the empty shell, and even go so far as to paint white eggs with all kinds of colours. A wag once sent me a small domestic fowl's egg, very cleverly marked with by no means unreasonable colours, and a request that I should identify it for him. I promptly replied that it was a common Humbug's egg from Bamboozle-'em-land.
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