Their
footprints have been found on the mud opposite a creek in Hammersmith,
round which is one of the most crowded quarters of the poorer folk of West
London. The birds had been fishing within ten yards of the houses, which
at this point are largely inhabited by organ-grinders and vendors of
ice-creams, callings which do not promote quiet and solitude in the
immediate neighbourhood. In the evening and early morning a few wild ducks
accompany the herons as low as the reach above Hammersmith Bridge, and
single ducks have been seen even at midday flying overhead. At sunrise one
Midsummer Day I saw a sheldrake (probably an escaped bird) flying down the
river, looking very splendid in its black, white, and red plumage, in the
bright light of the morning. It haunted the reach for some days, and was
not shot. Among other visitors to this part of the river and its island
during spring were a curlew, which fed for some time on the eyot during
the early morning, and a pair of pheasants, one of which, an old-fashioned
English cock bird, was subsequently captured unhurt. A flock of sandpipers
remained there for some weeks, and during the summer numbers of
sedge-warblers have nested on and around the eyot; the cuckoo has been a
regular visitor to the osier-bed in the early morning, probably with a
view to laying its eggs in the sedge-warblers' nests.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143