Birds and Men by E. M. Nicholson

Author:E. M. Nicholson [E. M. Nicholson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007406159
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

CIRL-BUNTING (Pl. XXb)

A map of the Roman Empire would give a tolerable idea of the distribution of the cirl-bunting, which is predominantly a bird of the Mediterranean, but spreads some way across Asia Minor, up the Danube Valley and through the mildest parts of western Europe. Like the Roman colonists it conveys an impression of tolerating best the most benign and genial spots in this dank northern island, in which it reaches both the most northerly and the most westerly points of its breeding range. Yet it is of all our buntings the least given to migration, being nearly stationary at all seasons, and its power of surviving severe winters compares favourably with that of most of our passerine birds.

In England cirl-buntings breed in some strength only within a comparatively narrow belt of roughly sixty miles in depth behind the English Channel coast, and in the lower Severn basin and near the coast of North Wales. Very small numbers may be found in a few other South Midland and Welsh counties, but north of the Trent and Mersey, in Scotland and Ireland, and even in East Anglia, cirl-buntings are less often seen than several accidental wanderers from the Continent. Nesting was, however, proved in Lancashire in 1941, and in Leicestershire also during the war, and there have been several recent occurrences in the north of England.

Even within their chosen part of Great Britain cirl-buntings are only to be found in certain districts, usually within a very few miles of the sea or of some specially favoured stream or hill escarpment, and within these districts again there are special spots for which they show continuing preference. I have known such spots in Sussex, in Surrey, in Hampshire, in both North and South Devon, in Cornwall and in Gloucestershire, and I have also watched cirl-buntings in the breeding season in Middlesex and Herefordshire as well as abroad, yet it remains extremely difficult to define their exacting tastes. Their choice seems to fall not on a particular type of country but on the kind of spot to which a discriminating man might wish to retire after spending a good deal of his life in some much warmer climate than ours. In fact near Worthing, by Spithead, in the South Hams of Devon, in the Cheltenham-Malvern area and elsewhere, cirl-buntings select the same neighbourhoods and even frequent the actual gardens which such people have picked. Often, although not always, the chosen spot is on a slope, sometimes facing south, and in any case not too exposed; unless the slope is gentle and does not rise too high, the cirl-bunting is likely to be found fairly near the foot of it. In Devon I have seen a fine cock bathing for several minutes in a small clear stream, splashing the water over himself and preening, and nine years later another was seen bathing with enjoyment in an ornamental garden pool not far away. The frequent choice of a territory near to water may be no accident.

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