. Birds through the year . hbouring rock tells us that it, too, istenanted. The extreme conspicuousness of such nesting-places illustrates only too clearly one reason for the diminu-tion of the birds of prey. The wheatear in its bur-row and the wary curlewon the wide waste bringup their young in safeconcealment; but theblack nest of the crowor magpie is often themost conspicuous objecton the whole of the Maymoors. The rowans andashes leaf late, and thenesting marauders donot wait for them; theshepherds boys pocketthe kestrels red eggsand the crows greenones, or the game-keeper destroys thewhol
. Birds through the year . hbouring rock tells us that it, too, istenanted. The extreme conspicuousness of such nesting-places illustrates only too clearly one reason for the diminu-tion of the birds of prey. The wheatear in its bur-row and the wary curlewon the wide waste bringup their young in safeconcealment; but theblack nest of the crowor magpie is often themost conspicuous objecton the whole of the Maymoors. The rowans andashes leaf late, and thenesting marauders donot wait for them; theshepherds boys pocketthe kestrels red eggsand the crows greenones, or the game-keeper destroys thewhole brood by a chargeof shot from the hillsideclose at hand. Thegrey or hooded crowtakes the place of the carrion crow in the north and west ofScotland, as well as in Ireland; and where trees are absent,it builds its nest on some slope of rock, or even among theflat heather on some little islet in the lonely Hebridean lochs,where the thin song of the omnipresent titlark contrasts withthe harsh cries of goosanders and MOORLAND BIRDS 73 Partridges haunt the grass-moors to a considerableheight, and old cock pheasants of wild and wary habits dwellin the wooded dingles that mount between the bare shouldersof the hills. Their cry blows over the open crests with adistant association of oak leaves and mossy shadows. Wherea mantle of alders and birches clings loosely to the sidesof the hills, just above the highest oat and barley fields,black game harbour on the edge of the desert and the are distinctly birds of the rough moorland scrub, and aremidway in habit between the capercailzie, which haunts thepine-woods, and the red-grouse of the open moors of nearest relative of the red-grouse is the Norwegian riperor willow-grouse, which in summer has its grouselike plumageconspicuously splashed with white, and in winter turns whitealmost completely, and is then common in the poulterersshops under the guise of ptarmigan. Heather is scarce inNorway, and the chief h
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirdspi, bookyear1922
