This sound was not long in coming, and the moment I heard it, up I
jumped like a Jack-in-the-box, but without the squeak, in time to
see a forktail leave a spot on the bank about 6 feet above the water.
I was surprised, as I had the day before examined that place without
discovering the nest. However, I went straight to the spot from which
the forktail had flown, and found the nest after a little searching.
The bank was steep and of uneven surface. Here and there a slab of
stone projected from it and pointed downwards. Into a natural hollow
under one of these projecting slabs a nest consisting of a large mass
of green moss and liver-worts had been wedged. From the earth above
the slab grew some ferns, which partially overhung the nest. Across
the nest, a few inches in front of it, ran a moss-covered root. From
out of the mossy walls of the nest there emerged a growing plant.
All these things served to divert attention from the nest, bulky
though this was, its outer walls being over 2 inches thick. The inner
wall was thin--a mere lining to the earth. The nest contained four
young birds, whose eyes were barely open. The young ones were covered
with tiny parasites, which seemed quite ready for a change of diet,
for immediately after picking up one of the young forktails, I found
some thirty or forty of these parasites crawling over my hand!
There is luck in finding birds' nests, as in everything else. A few
days after I had discovered the one above mentioned, I came upon
another without looking for it. When I was walking along a hill-stream
a forktail flew out from the bank close beside me, and a search of
thirty seconds sufficed to reveal a well-concealed nest containing
three eggs. These are much longer than they are broad. They are
cream-coloured, mottled and speckled with tiny red markings.
_THE NEST OF THE GREY-WINGED OUZEL_
On several occasions this year (1910) I have listened with unalloyed
pleasure to the sweet blackbird-like song of the grey-winged ouzel
(_Merula boulboul_) at Naini Tal--a station in the Himalayas,
consisting of over a hundred bungalows dotted on the well-wooded
hillsides that tower 1200 feet above a mountain lake that is itself
6000 feet above the level of the sea. On the northern slope of one
of the mountains on the north side of the Naini Tal lake, is a deep
ravine, through which runs a little stream. The sides of the ravine
are covered with trees--mainly rhododendron, oak, and holly.
On July 1st I went 1000 feet down this ravine to visit the nest of
a spotted forktail (_Henicurus maculatus_) which I had discovered
a week previously. Having duly inspected the blind, naked,
newly-hatched forktails, I went farther down the stream to try to
see something of a pair of red-billed blue magpies (_Urocissa
occipitalis_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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