Untitled

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 13

! DEAR ONES: I have often told you about my friend, Mr Big Brown Thrush, f who sits on a tree outside my writing-room window, and sings his finest { songs to me. Well, Mr Thrush has a cousin called Mr Dark-Brown | Thrush, and he has a wife called Mrs Dark-Brown Thrush. Neither | of these thrushes have beautiful speckled breasts like their hand- | some cousin. Their coats are a dark, sombre brown, and unless I look i at them closely I nearly mistake them for their next-door neighbour, 9 Mr Blackbird. They are not at all friendly, either. In fact, they S are Most unfriendly, and why they decided to build their nest in my ! garden Ido not know. But build it they did. They chose the branch I of a sturdy ribbonwood tree that leans above an old green seat that I stands in the corner of my garden. As they stole feathers and straw | and twig's from sparrows and several timid thrushes, their nest was jj soon finished; and it was three days later, when two pretty eggs had | been laid, that Michael became interested and decided to go and in- | vestigate. He jumped up on the old seat and was just going to climb I the tree, when Mrs Dark-Brown Thrush attacked him. How dare he S as much as look at her precious nest! She screeched and she scolded, I and then she flew at him and flapped her wings in his face. Naturally, I Michael became most annoyed. He had never been so insulted by a I bird before; so he twitched his tail angrily, and unsheathed his long, I sharp claws. And next time Mrs Dark-Brown Thrush flew at him, he j leapt to meet her, and caught her, too! And that would have been j the end of my story, and the end of Mrs Bark-Brown Thrush, too, = if her warlike husband had not appeared on the scene. With a whirr- * ing of wings, and an angry scolding, he hurled himself against Michael. I Poor Michael! It ,was too much altogether! He loosed his hold, and I turned to deal with the new assailant, and Mrs Dark-Brown Thrush | escaped, leaving most of her tail in pussy’s mouth. And then you i never heard such a noise! They both began scolding and screeching at once, and swooped at Michael until he was quite bewildered and almost deafened. At last, looking most ashamed of himself, he sought refuge indoors, and sat and sulked beneath a table. He did not attempt to climb the ribbonwood tree again, but whenever he went near that corner of the garden, both the thrushes flew down and began scolding and threatening him. If I happened to go and sit on the seat beneath their j nest, I would hear a rustling in the low branches beside me, and j would see Mr and Mrs Dark-Brown Thrush watching me intently, | not more than a yard away. And if I moved or looked at their snug j little nest, they would immediately begin their angry scolding. They | were the noisiest and most unfriendly pair of birds I have ever seen, j They even attacked Bill one day, and he lost his temper and chased ! them right round the garden, angrily trying to climb trees in his at- [ tempts to reach them. Yes, Bill is certainly an optimist. He fondly | imagined that if only he could climb those trees the thrushes would | sit quite still and let him catch them! Anything funnier than a | plump little black and white dog trying to climb silver-birches and | willow-trees, is hard to imagine, and it was several minutes before I j could stop laughing long enough to tell him not to be so foolish. It has seemed strangely quiet in the garden to-day, and I have | just realised that it is because I have not once heard the noisy scoldI ing of Mr and Mrs Dark-Brown Thrush. Perhaps Mrs Thrush is sitt- ! ing on her pretty eggs, and Mr Thrush has gone to visit his friends in j the next-door garden; or perhaps they think there have been too t many disturbances altogether, and have decided to leave their nest I and go and build elsewhere. | I must go down to investigate. L ov E . fetou = P-S. —I wish to thank lan and Colin Hewson for the lovely bunch of 1 lily-of-the-valley they sent me.—P.P.