. Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh . ing the ditches and small streams forBlackbirds and Thrushes ; I have had four brought to mealive in the course of one week. Some I have bought, andafter keeping them a few days have released them at thebottom of my garden, along wliich passes the Xew of tliese birds took Sticklebacks out of a soup-plateafter the first day, but they never live long in captivity. Tliey nest here regularly in certain places. In the bank ofsome small brook the Kingfisher makes a hole, or finds a rat-holeready made, at tlic end of which i
. Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh . ing the ditches and small streams forBlackbirds and Thrushes ; I have had four brought to mealive in the course of one week. Some I have bought, andafter keeping them a few days have released them at thebottom of my garden, along wliich passes the Xew of tliese birds took Sticklebacks out of a soup-plateafter the first day, but they never live long in captivity. Tliey nest here regularly in certain places. In the bank ofsome small brook the Kingfisher makes a hole, or finds a rat-holeready made, at tlic end of which it enlarges a small the minute bones of tlie small fish on which she feedsare disgorged, and on these she lays her shining white eggs,almost globular in form. I have occasionally seen the birdhover like a little Kestrel and plunge into the water afterits food ; but its usual tactics are to sit motionless on someoverhanging spray or protruding stump, on the watch forany small fish or aquatic insect. On these it drops suddenly, 140 Pictures of Bird Life. Castings of Barn-owl. and generally succeeds in niakino- a capture. It then resumesits perch, or sometimes another one near at liand. Mith theprey—if a fish—crosswise in its beak, and it is only swallowedafter being repeatedly banged violently against its percli. By watching these lovely birds, it is possible to find outtheir favourite perches along a length of stream. To thesethey fly regularly, and Aisit one after the other. At onesuch perch, a thin rootlet sticking out from a bank, I watchedat close quarters an adult Kingflsher this year for a longtime. He had in his beak a small fish, apparently from theshape a very young Jack. Just abo\e the bank was a hole,from which apparently a brood of young Kingfishers hadrecently flown, and I Mas doubtful if they were nestingagain, either in the same place or elsewhere near at I expected to see it fly into some liole orother, and watched it closely, hopi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirdspi, bookyear1903
