In a Cheshire Garden: Natural History NotesEgerton-Warburton, Geoffrey
History
In a Cheshire Garden: Natural History Notes
Egerton-Warburton, Geoffrey
Natural History -- England -- Cheshire; Natural history -- Outdoor books
I have received from a friend in Northamptonshire (Mr. G. S. Garrett,
of Little Houghton) a photograph showing a similar instance of two
nests built one above the other. He says: "A piece of bark about 20
inches by 13, fell off an elm tree into a fence and dried up into a
tube-like shape. A spotted flycatcher built its nest in the top and
laid 5 eggs and a brown wren in the bottom laying 7 eggs.... The nests
are now in the Rochester Museum."
X.
BRITISH MAMMALS.
The whole extent of the garden, with its croft and orchard, is not
three acres, but a fair proportion of the British mammals are from time
to time to be found there.
The old church, largely built of timber, picturesque and quaint, stands
within a few yards of the house and its roof affords shelter to many
bats. We find the wings of moths, the remnants of their feasts,
scattered on the floor (I have noticed the wings of a tortoise-shell
butterfly among them), and I have found there more than one dead body
of a common bat; I cannot say whether that is the only kind we have,
but in 1908 a bat was seen near the house which, from the description
given of its size and manner of flight, may perhaps have been a
noctule.
On May 28th, 1899, there was an eclipse of the sun; it was only
partial, and made very little difference to the light, but just so long
as it lasted, from 3 to 4.30 p.m., I saw a bat flying busily round and
about the church.
The soil is light and worms seem to be abundant, but one hardly ever
sees a mole-hill in this part of Cheshire. One day, however, in
December, 1899, we noticed that a bed of parsley had withered in a
mysterious way, and when we came to look, the ground was quite
undermined with mole-runs. These were very shallow, and there was no
sign of a hillock above. Many of the roots of the parsley had been
entirely eaten off, and we saw that nearly all that remained in the bed
were full of grubs. These grubs it must have been, I suppose, that
attracted the mole, but it is curious that such an exceptional
condition of the roots should have been discovered, considering how
seldom there is any sign of a mole in the neighbourhood. We noticed
that the root of a strong raspberry cane on one side of the parsley bed
had been eaten off in the same way, but it is not very likely that this
would have had grubs in it.
Hedgehogs are not uncommon and we sometimes see them in broad daylight.
In July one year (1900) every evening for about a week we used to see a
large hedgehog running along a broad gravel walk close to the windows
of the house. It came always at the same time, "just at the edge of
dark," as they say here, and it always took the same route and
disappeared at the same place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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