"A-Birding On A Broncho" Suggested An
Equally Alliterative Title For This Chapter - "Birding On A
Bike"; But I Will Leave It To Others, For Those Who Go
A-Birding Are Now Very Many And Are Hard Put To Find Fresh
Titles To Their Books.
For several reasons it will suit me
better to borrow from Cobbett and name this chapter "Rural
Rides."
Sore of us do not go out on bicycles to observe the ways of
birds. Indeed, some of our common species have grown almost
too familiar with the wheel: it has become a positive danger
to them. They not infrequently mistake its rate of speed and
injure themselves in attempting to fly across it. Recently I
had a thrush knock himself senseless against the spokes of my
forewheel, and cycling friends have told me of similar
experiences they have had, in some instances the heedless
birds getting killed. Chaffinches are like the children in
village streets - they will not get out of your way; by and by
in rural places the merciful man will have to ring his bell
almost incessantly to avoid running over them. As I do not
travel at a furious speed I manage to avoid most things, even
the wandering loveless oil-beetle and the small rose-beetle
and that slow-moving insect tortoise the tumbledung. Two or
three seasons ago I was so unfortunate as to run over a large
and beautifully bright grass snake near Aldermaston, once a
snake sanctuary. He writhed and wriggled on the road as if I
had broken his back, but on picking him up I was pleased to
find that my wind-inflated rubber tyre had not, like the
brazen chariot wheel, crushed his delicate vertebra; he
quickly recovered, and when released glided swiftly and easily
away into cover.
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