ON A SHEEP'S BACK

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1661, 10 September 1925, Page 2

ON A SHEEP'S BACK

(Hawks are notoriously slack about nest building, and the kestrel seldom builds for itself. An old magpie’s nest suits a pair of kestrels to perfection. They pull away the carefully constructed roof, flatten down the cup below, then waste no time in laying their eggs and raising a family. The writer has found sparrow-hawks’ eggs) in the abandoned, home of a magpie, and also in a previous year’s carrion crow’s nest.

Sparrows are lazy, and will either repair an old nest or take any other home that comes handy. The old nest of a blackbird or thfush is often used, and they will even take up their abode in a housemarjan’s nest under the eaves. The quarters are rather cramped, but the birds do not seem to mind. Our common owls usually rear their broods in hollow trees, but the shorteared or woodcock owl finds a deserted rabbit burrow, or—lives in a hole made by the armadillo, the viscacha, ox* the gopher (a species of small tortoise).

Another bird which usually steals someone eise’s carefully-excavated home is the puffin, or sea parrot. The oddest case of a stolen home comes from Buckland Brewer, near Bideford, England, where a starling built its nest in the wool on the back of a living sheep. The nest was found by a shearer, and in it.were three live fledgelings.

Among British animals the worst sinner in respect of living in other folk’s lodgings is the fox. The deep bury of the badger proves an irresistible temptation to the vixen and once she has taken up her quarters there she is not easily dislodged. 'Old keepers say that the badger dislikes the scent of the fox so greatly that, once the latter is established in the home, it will never interfere with its intruding tenant.

The squirrel is quite capable of building its own “drey,” but if it can find an old nest, such as that of a crow or jackdaw, in a suitable tree, it will use this as a foundation.

Orayfish, at one time almost extinct in British rivers, are increasing rapidly. Ordinarily speaking, these delicious shell-fish live in holes in the banks, but if an old kettle or can happens to have been dropped into a river, the crayfish is not slow to take advantage of such a safe resort. One of the finest the writer ever saw was taken inside an old corned beef tin which lay at the bottom of a Buckinghamshire brook.

Of sea creatures, the hermit crab is an expert house thief. It is amusing to watch the hermit crabs in a glassfronted tank in the Plymouth aquarium. Each has its own separate seashell in which it lives, but occasionally one, having outgrown its home, starts out to find another, and you may see two of these shell-less creatures struggling together for the house which each covets. There is one little crab, known as the pea crab, which actually lives inside the shells of living bivalves. But this is a case of What is called “commensalism,” not of actual house stealing.