Birds and their nests and eggs - found in and near great towns (1907) (14568799420)

Identifier: birdstheirnestse00vosg (find matches)
Title: Birds and their nests and eggs : found in and near great towns
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Vos, George Herklots
Subjects: Birds Birds Birds
Publisher: London : G. Routledge New York : E.P. Dutton.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries



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ing mortal who dares to molest themat the nest. Waiting quietly as we did in NightingaleValley, another little bird, the creeper, alsofavoured us with a view of himself. Wefirst became aware of his presence by thelittle twee, twee that he kept on uttering.Flying from a tree, the stem and boughs ofwhich he had completely searched for food,we saw him, selecting another for the samepurpose, go to the bottom, of it with anundulating flight, and then rapidly ascend inlittle jerky creeps (a favourite way with him),using his tail as a support, like the wood-pecker. He quickly saw us, however, andimmediately hid himself, and his twee,twee was soon far away. He is rather anodd looking little bird with a curved beakmost suitable for inserting into all the holesand openings that he finds, and he is fullof restless activity in searching for his insectfood. I have frequently seen him in gardens EARLY MAY Z7 in the spring, but because of his love of con-cealment of his Uttle self, when you hear his
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XV: The creeper, male (5-size) note you must wait patiently and still for aghmpse of him. His plumage too (like the 38 DOWN NIGHTINGALE VALLEY: wrynecks) is much like the dark bark oftrees, and he keeps close to the wood onwhich he creeps. The nest being always ina crack or hole, we did not expect to find onethat would be photographable, but perhaps weshall some day. It is well made—generallyin April—four to eight white reddish-brownspotted eggs being laid. We had seen many starlings on our waydown here, and they are almost everywhere.We are all familiar with the bird, but fewhave seen the nest. We found one in an oldtree stump, but it was too high to photo-graph. It contained three delicately tintedpale greenish-blue eggs, without markings orspots of any kind (five are generally laid),and we had to reach down far to get at them.The structure is not a true nest at all. Anyone could imitate it. Select a hole some-where, high up or near the ground, underthe eaves of a roof, a crevic