Kitabı oku: «A Year with the Birds», sayfa 7

The ground now rises towards the hills which form the limit of our western horizon. On these hills may now and then be seen a few birds which we seldom meet with in the lower grounds, such as the Stone-chat, the Brambling, the Wheatear; but as the hills are for the most part cultivated, and abound in woods and brooks, the difference between the bird life of the uplands and the lowlands is not remarkable at any time of the year.

It may be worth while, however, to note down in outline the chief movements of the birds in our district in the course of a single year. In January, which is usually the coldest month in the year, the greater number of our birds are collected in flocks in the open country, the villages only retaining the ordinary Blackbirds, Thrushes, Robins, &c. The winter migrants are in great numbers in the fields, but they and almost all other birds will come into villages and even into towns in very severe weather. In February, villages, orchards, and gardens are beginning to receive more of the bird population, while the great flocks are beginning to break up under the influence of the approach of spring. In March the same process goes on more rapidly; the fields are becoming deserted and the gardens fuller. But meanwhile hedges, woods, thickets and streams are filling with a population from beyond the seas, some part of which penetrates even into the gardens, sharing the fruit-trees with the residents, or modestly building their nests on the ground. As a rule, though one of a very general kind, it may be laid down that our resident birds prefer the neighbourhood of mankind for nesting purposes, while the summer migrants build chiefly in the thickets and hedges of the open country; so that just at the time when Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Goldfinches, and a host of other birds are leaving the open country for the precincts of the village, their places are being taken by the new arrivals of the spring. Or if this rule be too imperfect to be worth calling a rule at all (for all the Swallow kind but one British species build in human habitations), it is at least true that if a garden offers ample security for nesting, the proportion of residents to migrants taking advantage of it will be much greater than in a wood or on a heath.

Just as the population of the open country begins to decrease in numbers in early spring, so it increases rapidly in the first weeks of summer. The young broods that have spent their infancy in or near the village now seek more extended space and richer supplies of food, and when the hay is cut, they may be found swarming in all adjacent hedges and on the prostrate swathes, while the gardens are comparatively empty. But before July is over an attentive watcher will find that his garden is visited by birds which were not born and bred there; while the residents are away in the fields, the migrants begin to be attracted to the gardens by the ripening fruits of all kinds. White-throats, Willow-warblers, Chiff-chaffs, haunt the kitchen-garden for a while, then leave it on their departure for the coast and their journey southwards. After this last little migration, the villages and gardens remain almost deserted except by the Blackbirds and Thrushes, the Robins and the Wrens, until the winter drives the wilder birds to seek the neighbourhood of man once more. Even then, unless the garden be well timbered, they will be limited to a very few species, except in the hardest weather; and it is remarkable how little variety will be found among our winter pensioners – those recipients of out-door relief, who spoil their digestions by becoming greedy over a food which is not natural to them.

This rough attempt to sketch the local migrations of birds must be understood as applying to my own village only, and to gardens which are not surrounded with extensive parks.

CHAPTER VI.
THE ALPS IN SEPTEMBER

As I observed in a former chapter, the movements of the birds of the Alps are, or ought to be, of very great interest to the ornithologist, owing partly to the wonderful variety of food and climate afforded by the gigantic structure of this mountain district, and partly to its geographical position, lying as it does in the very centre of the various routes of migration in spring and autumn.

I had long been anxious to obtain some more reliable information about these movements than I had acquired when my third chapter was written, and to obtain it as far as possible at first hand; and I eagerly seized the opportunity, in September of the present year (1886), of a visit to relations in Germany, to make a rapid détour to the Alps, about the time when the more delicate birds would be beginning to leave the higher valleys and pastures, now fast becoming too cold at night to suit their tender frames. I was able to remain only a very few days, but I saw and heard enough to occupy my attention fully during that short time, and am disposed to hope that by setting down my experiences I may attract the attention of autumn travellers to a matter which lends new interest to a hackneyed region, after the flowers have disappeared, and when the days are getting too short for ambitious mountain-climbing.

I arrived at Lucerne on the morning of September 16, and went on at once to Alpnacht, at the extreme end of the south-western arm of the lake, having on my left the starting-point of our former walk. I did not expect to see anything of autumn migration quite so early as this, or I should have taken the St. Gotthard line direct to the great tunnel, and then have established myself at once at or near the head of the Reuss valley which the railway follows; but I wished to see what birds were still to be found in the lower levels, and determined to spend a day or two in the great valley of Hasli, where I left my reader at the end of my third chapter. Before I take him further on this second round of exploration, I must ask him to look with me at a map of Switzerland, in order that we may understand the geographical conditions of the problem about which I was now going to try and learn a little.

A little study of a good map will show that the true alpine region of Switzerland proper consists of two enormous mountain barriers, fencing in, to north and south, a deep trench, nearly a hundred miles in length. This trench represents the valleys of the Rhine and Rhone, which start within a short distance of each other, and are only interrupted for a few miles, in the very centre of the region, by the upper part of the valley of the river Reuss, which here forms a kind of elevated plain, enclosed, like the trench itself, between vast mountains; this plain is the bed of an ancient lake, which once escaped from its prison through a narrow opening at the eastern end, where the Devils’ Bridge now stands. On the northern side of the trench, throughout its whole length, the mountain barrier is pierced by ordinary summer routes at three points only: beginning from the west, at the Gemmi Pass, north of the Rhone, where the opening is artificial rather than natural; at the Grimsel Pass, which debouches upon the source of the Rhone in its Glacier; and at the point mentioned just now, where the lake made its escape, and where a tunnel driven through the rock has taken the place of an ancient hanging bridge. Nothing can be more striking to a geographical eye than the fact that from the point where it abuts upon the lake of Geneva (where communication is of course easier) to the point where the Rhine curves round to the north at Chur, the northern barrier of the trench offers only these three passages to the ordinary human traveller. The southern rampart, though for the most part broader, and including the highest European peaks, admits the traveller southward at several points, and is pierced by two excellent carriage roads, those of the Simplon and the St. Gotthard.

During the summer, the parts of Switzerland north of the trench and its two barriers, are occupied by countless fragile birds, which have come from Africa over Italy, and must return there in the autumn. How do they come, and how do they return? Of their arrival I have had no personal experience, and shall therefore say nothing; for it does not follow that birds always come and go in exactly the same manner and by exactly the same route. But of the departure of some of them I can now tell something, having had the evidence of my own eyes that a double barrier such as I have described is not a fatal obstacle to their progress. The main facts of the migration have indeed been long known, and only too well known, to the inhabitants of the district; for the people of Canton Tessin, which consists of the valleys to the south of the central part of the Alps, sharing the tastes of their neighbours the Italians, were until a few years ago in the habit of lying in wait for the birds, and snaring them in vast numbers. When the hold of the Central Federal Government over the individual Cantons was made stronger a few years ago, the same absolute prohibition of wanton slaughter was extended to this canton, which had long been respected in the others; and in spite of a cantonal appeal to be allowed to revert to the old licence, the “Bund” held its own, and succeeded in protecting the migrants. No bird may now be killed at any time of the year in any part of Switzerland, without either a game licence, of which the cost is considerable, or a permission to procure specimens for a scientific object.

We took no gun with us on this occasion, being more anxious to observe movements than to identify species. My plan was, after noting the bird-population of the lower levels, which we called Region No. 1, to pass through the northern barrier by the Grimsel or the St. Gotthard, and take my station at the head of one of these passes, in the highest ground of the great trench, and there to look about me, and also to make inquiries about the ‘Vögelzug.’ Accordingly, after leaving the lake of Lucerne, I turned in the direction of the great valley of the Aar, or Haslithal, which leads up to the Grimsel Pass, knowing that at Meiringen, which lies in the flat of it, not far from its issue into the lake of Brienz, I should be able to see almost in a single walk what summer migrants were still to be found in it. But I halted for the night at the beautiful village of Lungern, in order to enjoy the walk over to the Haslithal in the early morning of the next day; and here I was met by my old friend Anderegg, who was as eager as myself for a week of diligent observation.

The next morning was one of those which seem to stir the hearts of all living creatures, urging them to the enjoyment of autumn warmth while it lasts, and to the pursuit of food while it is still abundant. We had hardly entered the first pine-wood when Anderegg detected the querulous sibilation of the Crested Tit, and two minutes later we had a little family around us, searching the fir-branches without showing any anxiety at our presence. Shortly afterwards a pair of Ravens passed over us, twisting themselves round as they flew through the morning mist, in a peculiar way, and without any object as far as I could see; and at the same moment a small party of Crossbills on the very top of a pine began to chatter with indignation at the appearance of a possible enemy. A few minutes later my sharp-eared companion heard the voices of the Great Black Woodpecker and of the Greater Spotted Woodpecker (Schild-specht); but the forest was here so large and dense that we were obliged to move on without seeing either. Passing slowly upwards, and enlivened by the close neighbourhood of Jays, Nutcrackers, Missel-thrushes, and by the occasional song of both Robin and Wren, we arrived near the highest point of the Brünig carriage-road, where it runs for some distance almost at a level, and is carried along the side of a steep ascent, the hollow below it being covered with undergrowth stretching down to sunny meadows, while the pine-forest rises above it sharp and dense. A better position for an ornithologist could hardly be desired; for as he stands at the edge of the road his eye must catch every movement in the bushes below him, while his ear commands for a considerable distance the pine-wood above him. Here I walked up and down for some time, scanning the multitudinous Cole-tits and Marsh-tits which were playing in the cover below the road, and mentally comparing their plumage with that of our British forms of the same species; and while thus occupied, a Great Black Woodpecker, the first I had ever seen alive, hove in sight and fixed himself on a pine at no great distance, enabling me to watch him for some time with my strongest glass, as he went to work on the bark, now and again twisting his head round watchfully, like a Wryneck, and giving me an excellent view of his powerful bill. Presently, with rapid wing-strokes, like those of the Green Woodpecker, he flew over our heads, and was lost in the forest above us. As he flies, he utters a series of laughing notes, and often gives out a prolonged call after settling on a tree. He is a very fine and remarkable bird; as large, said Anderegg, as a fowl, using precisely the same comparison which occurred to Aristotle two thousand years ago.

We then descended rapidly into the Haslithal, where I spent one whole day in noting such of its feathered inhabitants as had not already deserted it, or were likely to stay in it during the winter. The most remarkable feature of this broad and flat hollow in the hills, is the river Aar, which has been artificially confined for several miles within a strong stone embankment. On this particular day the stonework on each side was literally alive with Wagtails; the left bank seemed almost exclusively occupied by the gray species, and the right bank by the white. All these were continually flying out over the swift glacier water, hovering for a few moments as they sought for flies, and then retiring to their station on the bank; and this was going on for the length of a full mile between the two bridges, so that the whole number of Wagtails must have been enormous. I could hardly avoid the conclusion that these birds had collected in view of migration. The Gray Wagtail, Anderegg tells me, is never to be seen here in the winter, and the white species seldom; but as to what becomes of them I am unable as yet to be sure. Perhaps they simply move down the river into the lower and warmer districts of western and northern Switzerland; just as in England also there is a general movement of Wagtails in the autumn from the more mountainous districts into the regions of plain and meadow.

Another unusual sight was the vast assembly of Carrion Crows, which gathered in the evening, first to drink (not in the rushing Aar, but in a stream quiet enough to give me a momentary view of a Kingfisher); then to perch on a number of small fruit-trees, and finally to wheel round and round among the pines and precipices, until they settled down to roost for the night. But for their voices and their black bills, it was hard to believe that they were not rooks; but no rook was visible, and this bird seems almost unknown in the valley. After seeing this strange sight, I find it hard to assent to the universally accepted proposition, that the Crow is never, strictly speaking, a gregarious bird. So constant is their habit here of roosting together, that Anderegg told me that he had more than once, when out hunting at night, been almost deafened with the noise they made when threatened by the gigantic Eagle-owl.

Of the ordinary summer birds there were few to be seen, though the weather was warm for September. The Chiff-chaff sang now and then from the hotel garden, and a certain number of Willow-warblers were still about the beans and flax in the fields; Bonelli’s Warbler (see p. 109) I was quite unable to detect. There were a few Swallows, House-martins, and Crag-martins; Goldfinches in fair abundance, very busy with seeds in the cultivated land; a few Robins, and a solitary Whinchat. I began to fear that I had come too late to witness any considerable migration; for even the Black Redstart, the representative bird of these valleys in summer, was in much smaller numbers than usual. Even the Starlings had all departed to a bird, not to return till March. On the other hand, the birds of the higher regions were already showing a disposition to come down to lower levels; among these the most interesting were the Nutcrackers (often in company with Jays) and the Crossbills. These last-mentioned birds, which are so seldom to be seen in England, were now to be found in the lowest instead of the highest pinewoods, in pairs or in small companies, giving warning of their presence by a rapidly repeated alarm-note. Generally they were on the very top twigs of a pine, where it was difficult to obtain a good sight of them; but one morning Anderegg’s son, who is beginning to pick up his father’s powers of observation, detected a pair on a pine below us, which both his elders had passed by unheeding. They were breakfasting each on the seeds of a cone, and I was able to observe with the glass how admirably the crossed mandibles are adapted for cutting into the heart of the fruit. The plumage of the male was a sober red, less brilliant than it will be next spring; and the female’s dull greenish colouring was hardly recognizable against the pines. The presence of these birds close down to the valleys denoted the rapid approach of a cold season, and it became plain that if I were to catch the southward migrants I must hasten upwards towards St. Gotthard. This I determined to do by the shortest possible route, crossing the Susten Pass eastwards into the Reuss valley at Wasen, and so getting easily to the highest point of the great trench.

The Alps have a beauty of their own in September, even when there are few flowers left, and the snow has long disappeared in all the highest pastures. This is the time when the second crop of grass is cut; and the mowing leaves a short and beautiful mossy golden turf, which shines brightly in the sun, and lies softly and smoothly where a pine or a boulder casts its shadow on the ground. The walk through the Gadmenthal up to the Susten Pass was one to be remembered for beauty, though not ornithologically productive. The only curiosity that I saw was a Creeper running up a house; a very natural proceeding on the part of the bird, where the houses are of wood, containing abundance of insects in the crannies.⁴⁶ The great curiosity of the valley, the three-toed Woodpecker, whose ‘fatherland’ (as Anderegg called it) is among the highest pine-woods at the head of the valley, would not show himself; though in the village of Gadmen we were told by an inhabitant that he had lately seen no less than seven of this species – a whole family, I suppose – on a single tree. Perhaps they too had come downwards in expectation of the winter. Alpine autumn was indeed around us, and at Gadmen we saw the first signs of the general migration of man, beast, and bird, which takes place at this time of year. A flock of sheep, which had been all the summer on the elevated Wendenalp, had just come down, and was being penned in front of the inn as we arrived. Great part of the population of the valley had assembled to claim their own, and when the penning was done all plunged into the living mass, men, women, boys, and sheep being mixed up in one confused struggle. Anxiety sat upon their faces, for no man knows whether he shall find his own sheep; some wander away and are lost, and some few – a fact of interest to me – are not too big to be carried off by the Golden Eagles that dwell in the vast precipices of the Titlis above the valley.

Above Gadmen the valley rapidly narrows, soon becoming little more than a cleft in the mountains, until it opens out into a pleasant little basin of uneven rocky pasture, much of which has been eaten away by a great mass of glacier which has descended into it within the present century, and is now again rapidly retreating. In this little basin – the Stein-alp, as it is appropriately called – is an excellent little inn; and here is the very place to catch the migrants of the Hasli and Gadmen valleys, if they should be passing this way; for the narrowing of the glen below must bring them all into this little basin, before they rise to the final ascent immediately above the inn. On the morning of September 17, as I was greeting Anderegg, and suggesting to him that we should make a second attempt to find the rare Woodpecker, he informed me with animation that he had seen, first a large collection of small Finches flying overhead, and secondly, a great number of Pipits assembled on the Alp a few minutes’ walk from the house. We at once went to look for these, but they had all disappeared; and we continued our walk downwards in search of the Woodpecker. But we had not gone far when our attention was attracted by a flock of Redstarts, working slowly upwards a little above the path; and turning back again, we followed these for some distance, assuring ourselves that they were no accidental assembly, but must be on their way to the head of the pass, and so onwards to the line of St. Gotthard into Italy. As we arrived again at the inn, we saw the flock of little birds which Anderegg had described in the morning; they were still about the inn, but so restless and so playful that even with a strong glass I could not be certain of their species. My own impression was that they were Redpolls; Anderegg, however, positively asserted that he had caught the voice of Citril and Serin Finches.

I now proposed that we should mount to the top of the pass, in order to observe whether the birds we had noticed in flocks lower down were still making way upwards. The result of this movement was that we found the Pipits – all Alpine-pipits (see p. 93), as far as I could ascertain – in a sunny hollow just above the glacier; they were there in great numbers, but did not mount further so long as we remained. The Redstarts too we found still slowly working upwards on the same side of the valley on which we had seen them in the morning; they were now just opposite to the glacier. But on the top of the pass, where it was too cold to stay long, we saw no signs of migrants; it was occupied only by a few Alpine Accentors, while high above, at a height of full 9000 feet above the sea, the Alpine Choughs were enjoying the sunshine. As we were descending, I caught sight of a tiny little tarn on the opposite side of the glacier, on the rocky alp high up above the inn, which struck me as a likely place for birds, especially as it was sheltered by a little crest of stunted trees of some kind. Here, after the mid-day meal, we made our way, and finding nothing at all, lay down on the grass to enjoy a splendid view of the craggy defile below us. But we had not been lying long before a twittering was heard, and the little flock which had puzzled us in the morning came dancing overhead, and settled so deep in the stunted pines I had noticed from the top of the pass, that though we could see the movements of the branches, we could not once get a clear sight of a single individual. This was too provoking, and I at once proceeded to crawl slowly towards the bushes, getting round to the flank of the birds on a rising bit of ground, until I was within a few yards of them. All that I saw were Redpolls,⁴⁷ and all of the ‘Mealy’ form known to ornithologists; the autumn moult had left them very white on breast and belly, and very mealy on wings and back. They were, as far as I could judge, a little larger than our British Lesser Redpoll. Were they too migrating, or were they going to spend the winter in the Gadmenthal? I suspect that they stay all their lives in the Alps, and instead of moving southward to a warmer climate when under stress of weather, have but to make a short journey to a lower station in the valley, to find at once a warmer temperature and abundance of the food they seek.

The next day, September 20, we packed up our baggage, and left this health-giving spot with its iced air and scented breezes, and again climbed the pass on our way to Wasen, being anxious to get to the head of the St. Gotthard before the fine weather should desert us. I was not unwilling to see my fellow-creatures again, as I had been quite alone on the Stein-alp, except for a single hour which an Englishman of education and intelligence had made very enjoyable as he took his ‘Mittagessen’ and smoked his cigarette with me. As it happened, we left just in time to enable us, as the reader will learn shortly, to see things worth recording at Hospenthal the following day.

On going up the ascent from the inn, I noticed that the Pipits were now in great numbers at a lower level than yesterday, and this suggested the conclusion that a fresh instalment had arrived from below, while those of yesterday had gone still higher or descended on the other side. This idea was fully confirmed by what I saw afterwards; for a good many more were at or about the top, and as we sat there for a few minutes, one flew right over us and disappeared in the depths of the valley in the direction of Wasen. All the way down too on the other side little parties were making their way in the same direction; and thus it became clear that these birds at least do not take flight all at once, but move in a continuous stream of parties smaller or greater, much as the late Mr. A. E. Knox described the migration of the Pied Wagtails from west to east in the south coast of England, in his admirable Ornithological Rambles in Sussex.⁴⁸ But we may well ask the question, Do they arrive in the same manner? The Susten Pass is 7000 feet above the sea, and is covered with snow from October to June. I myself once crossed it on June 29, when its deep snow bore no trace of human footsteps, and it was possible to make glissades over slopes where now not a vestige of snow was to be seen. Are we to suppose that the Pipits and their friends pass it in spring in spite of the snow, and travel in the same gradual manner? I cannot yet answer this question, nor is it likely that I shall ever be able to witness the arrival of the Susten Pipits as I witnessed their departure; but I contrived in the course of a week in these regions to set a few intelligent natives in an inquiring mood with regard to these matters, and it is possible that next spring may bring me some scraps of useful information. At present I am content to remember that Mr. Knox, in the passage just now referred to, was the first to discover that the arrival and departure of our English species are not performed in exactly the same manner.

We saw nothing of special ornithological interest in the melancholy Meienthal, which leads down from the Susten to the St. Gotthard railway at Wasen; but I was reminded of a passage in my third chapter (p. 83) when we arrived at the first considerable pasture, and found a whole community of men, women, children, cows, and goats, on the very point of migrating from their cool and healthy summer home. The cows were all gathered in front of the ‘Sennhütten,’ and when doors and windows had been made fast for the winter, all the human migrants stood for a few minutes in prayer, doubtless thanking God for the provision He had made for them and their cattle, and asking for a blessing on the pasture for the summers yet to come. Then all these Catholics of Uri streamed downwards with their cows in long procession, the head ‘Senner’ walking in front followed by one fine animal; and to-day the pasture is as still and desolate as it will be all the coming winter. Even the very stream that washes it will be less voiceful, when the first frosts have bound once more the snow that feeds and fills it through all the warm season. It was indeed most curious and interesting to find man, beast, and bird all leaving it on the same day.

On arriving at Wasen, being still alarmed lest I should be too late to see much on this side of the great double barrier – for it now became evident that the birds were taking advantage of the last fine weather – I had half a mind to go through the tunnel to Airolo, and catch them on the southern side. My second thoughts, however, were in this expedition unusually lucky, and I fortunately decided to stay for a night or two at Hospenthal, which lies just at the northern mouth of the St. Gotthard Pass proper, in that curious elevated valley mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, which lies just between the two halves of the great trench formed by the valleys of the Rhine and Rhone. Any birds crossing the St. Gotthard into Italy must necessarily pass Hospenthal, and I had heard enough already of migration in this district to make me pretty confident of getting information here, even if I were not lucky enough to see anything myself.

When we issued from the ‘Urner-loch’ into this broad and grassy valley, it was just beginning to grow dark; but we could see great numbers of swallows and martins on the church steeples both of Andermatt and Hospenthal, which are about a mile apart. As I came down the next morning at 7 a.m., I was met by Anderegg, who informed me that the gathering on the Hospenthal steeple had left their station in a body at 6 a.m., had circled high into the air for a few minutes, and then taken a directly southward course, not by the St. Gotthard road, but over the shoulder of the mountain which separates that road from a parallel valley to the east of it. That this account was true I was able to prove to my own satisfaction, for on the morning of the next day I was up in time to see a new party depart in precisely the same manner and the same direction. Like the Pipits, these Swallows and Martins migrate in considerable flocks coming one behind the other; and so far as we could ascertain from walks taken during the day, these flocks occupy successively the steeples of Andermatt and Hospenthal, coming up from the lower valley and settling first on the former, then leaving it when the other is free, and so eventually leaving that also to rise for their last flight over the great barrier. How long this process goes on I could not very clearly ascertain. But there were still young martins in the nests at Hospenthal, which would hardly be ready to fly for some days, and as we subsequently found a certain number of martins (though very few swallows) when we returned to the Haslithal, I am inclined to think that it occupies a considerable time, and differs in length according to the weather. On the occasion of my visit, though it was fine and warm, the barometer was falling, and the very next day a continuous rain and snow-fall set in, lasting nearly three days; so that it seemed as if the birds were making haste to escape from a climate which might very well be dangerous to them. In Meiringen I was told that great numbers of them were caught and killed by severe weather in September last year. And the waiter in the hotel at Hospenthal, who most fortunately has some interest in these matters, and keeps his eyes open in his idle autumn hours, declared that he had seen the martins so eager to induce their young to leave the nest before it was too late, that at last they pulled them out by main force and compelled them to join the general assembly on the steeple.