BIRDS' REFUGES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 118, 14 November 1929, Page 18

BIRDS' REFUGES

RUGGED CLIFFS OF WALES

THE GRACEFUL CHOUGH

'Wild and wind-swept aro the cliffs and islands along the . westernmost shores of Wales. It is a coast of sheer precipices, and rocks whoso strata are so tilted and contorted that they look like tho debris of somo titanic battlefield. Its ruggedness recalls Cornwall: Cornish, too, is Iho se:i, jade in colouwhen skies aro overcast, but cobalt in sunlight, and so JimphMhat in sheltered coves you can discern through pellucid depths of wavering water the white pebbles upon the sandy bottom writes E. W. Hendy in tho "Daily Telegraph." '

- Heru lies one of the few remainincr strongholds in Great Britain of the chough, that strange- and beautiful crow that maintains .its status anion» us but hardly. The first sight of the bird is memorable. From overhead comes a cry such as a jackdaw might utter had he forgotten for a moment to be mischievous; it is more mellow and .more gentle than his. In flight, too, the chough's movements are more graceful; with the long primary wing-fea-thers, spread , out like the fingers of an open hand, it floats buoyantly, caressing the air, in rise and fall, as though it loved its element. Then a sudden swoop with closed wings, and it alights daintily on a spur of rock. The sun, glancing upon its glossy black plumage, reveals purple reflections; the brilliant vermillion of its curved bill and legs show up in startling contrast to the sable feathers. VANISHING PEREGEINES. .Grow it is unmistakably, but a crow ft/fined aud sublimated; generations of good breeding have produced those gracious lines and those gentlo manners. Beside tho chough, the jackdaw is bourgeois and the raven Bolshevik. For in all its ways tho chough is graceful. . Choughs aro tame at the nest; ' you can sit on the cliff and watch them, make a nosedive into, tho cleft below, and then swoop up into the cave or overhung fissure in the rock where the nest is almost invariably placed. They do not nest in colonies like rooks and jackdaws, but in single pairs like ravens and magpies. But though the chough's home is his castle, ho seems not to resent friendly visits from others of his kind; at any rate this is a possible explanation of the fact that we saw more than once three and four adult choughs •fly together to one nest. Besides choughs, there aro buzzards; I know no district where they aro so common; you sco them sailing everywhere, and can look down, if you have a good head, upon their untidy nests, containing eggs or downy young, perched on ledges amidst dizzy heights. Ravens are abundant. Peregrines were scarcer than I had hoped; collectors are said to raid the eyries unmercifully in spite of nominal protection.

Where tho cliffs have split into pinnacles, shags were sitting bolt upright upon their much-befouled nests. But tho most curious rbek-breeding bird that we discovered was a heron. Usually you find herons '.'jesting gregariously in trees, but in a country where no trees are they have learned adaptability. ■This nest was perched upon a buttress, and contained three thriving young heronshaws attended by a parent', who fled, squawking indignantly, at our approach.* \ PUFFIN COMEDIES.

On the islands, guillemots aro packed like a swarm of bees upon the sheer sides of clefts, gnawed by ocean where tho rock is vulnerable. Their lovemaking is accompanied by caterwauls and shrieks which suggest a man sharpening a rusty saw upon his teeth, or "woman wailing for her' demon lover." Below them kittiwakes, most doveliko of gulls, sleep on their nests, with their waxen bills tucked into their backs.' On tho opposite slope, pufluis, seemingly parrots that have donned f also, noses and taken to a searl'aring life, swoop in clouds through the air, or grunt at you from the mouths of rabbit burrows.

Above the whale-back outline of one of tho adjacent islands a broad-winged bird sailed lazily, its outlines sharpened against tho evening glow. It was the mate-less golden eagle. Planing and careening with matchless air-mastery, it settled upon an outcrop, and became a silhouette carved out of its rocky perch. Gulls swooped at it, but still it sat there unmoved and nonchalant. Ten minutes later it took to air again, and canting its broad- pinions, swept in a wido curve below .the skylino.