Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/56

32 milked in the fields; other land is under crops. The grating song of the corncrake resounded from all the fields of long grass, for this bird is an abundant inhabitant of the lower land. A few stunted thorns barely manage to top the wind-swept banks, and brambles grow on the sheltered sides; here the blackbird nests and on any weed or spray that ventures to rise above the wall the corn bunting perches and jingles. From bank to bank along the shore or up amongst the rocks on the mountain flew with wheezy cries scores of hungry young starlings, bustling on whirring wings after their fussy parents. Titlarks mounted high with jerky notes and dropped again with dying trills, and in a few damp spots the sedge-warbler was singing.

The vernal squills and hyacinths were nearly over, but great white masses of bladder campion, a few red campions, and an abundance of bird's-foot trefoil flowered on bank and cliff; kidney-vetch was thick in places, and little blue Speedwells gave variety of colour. One field, we noticed, was one mass of fumitory, and yellow rattle was everywhere mingled with the flowering grasses.

Bardsey is practically treeless; save for a sycamore or two and a few stunted ashes there are no trees; but in certain places there is a luxuriant undergrowth, mostly rank weeds, brambles, and elder bushes, where a few warblers and other birds find shelter. When the cottages were pulled down to be replaced by better dwellings, the old sites were walled in and allowed to lie waste; these unused gardens are a paradise for whitethroats and hedge-sparrows and no doubt for blackbirds. Willow wrens, chaffinches, and spotted flycatchers and a pair or two of goldfinches nest on the island, but we did not meet with these; perhaps by the middle of June they had flown across to the mainland. Round the farms swallows were flying, twittering as they flew, and the familiar chirp