On The Top Of An Old Wall Covered With Broad Masses Of Lichen, The
Patches Of Which Grew Out At
Their edges as if a plate had taken to
spreading at its rim, the tits were much occupied in picking
Out minute
insects; the wagtails came too, sparrows, robins, hedge-sparrows, and
occasionally a lark; a bare blank wall to all appearance, and the bare
lichen as devoid of life to our eyes. Yet there must have been something
there for all these eager bills - eggs or pupae. A jackdaw, with iron-grey
patch on the back of his broad poll, dropped in my garden one morning, to
the great alarm of the small birds, and made off with some large dark
object in his beak - some beetle or shell probably, I could not
distinguish which, and should most likely have passed the spot without
seeing it. The sea-kale, which had been covered up carefully with
seaweed, to blanch and to protect it from the frost, was attacked in the
cold dry weather in a most furious manner by blackbirds, thrushes, and
starlings. They tore away the seaweed with their strong bills, pitching
it right and left behind them in as workmanlike style as any miner, and
so boring deep notches into the edge of the bed. When a blackbird had
made a good hole he came back to visit it at various times of the day,
and kept a strict watch. If he found any other blackbird or thrush
infringing on his diggings, he drove him away ferociously.
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