Our Summer Migrants: An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.Harting, James Edmund
Science
Our Summer Migrants: An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.
Harting, James Edmund
Birds -- Great Britain
It is a pleasure to be able to record the fact, that during the summer
of 1874, a pair of Golden Orioles took up their quarters in Dumpton
Park, Isle of Thanet, where—the proprietor, Mr. Bankes Tomlin, having
given strict injunctions that they should not be disturbed—they built a
nest, and successfully reared their young, ultimately leading them away
in safety.
They must have commenced building somewhat later than usual, for it was
not until the 6th of July that I first heard of the nest, and the young
were then just hatched. Mr. Bankes Tomlin having kindly invited me to
come and see it, I lost no time in availing myself of his invitation,
and a few days later, namely, on July 12th, I found myself at Dumpton
Park, standing under the very tree in which the nest was placed. The
reader may smile at the idea of journeying from London to Ramsgate
merely to look at a nest; but if he be an ornithologist, he will know
that Golden Orioles’ nests are not to be seen in this country every day,
and that when found they are worth “making a note of.” Often as I had
seen the bird and its nest on the Continent, it had never been my good
fortune until then to meet with it in England. Indeed, the instances in
which nests of the Oriole have been found here and recorded are so few
that they may be easily enumerated. According to the concise account
given by Professor Newton in his new edition of “Yarrell’s British
Birds,” one was discovered in June, 1836, in an ash plantation near Ord,
from which the young were taken; but, though every care was shown them,
they did not long survive their captivity. “Mr. J. B. Ellman says
(‘Zoologist,’ p. 2496) that at the end of May, 1849, a nest was, with
the owners, obtained near Elmstone. It was suspended from the extremity
of the top branch of an oak, was composed entirely of wool bound
together with dried grass, and contained three eggs. Mr. Hulke, in 1851,
also recorded (“Zoologist,’ p. 3034) a third, of which he was told that
it was found about ten years previously in Word Wood, near Sandwich, by
a countryman, who took the young, and gave them to his ferrets; and Mr.
More, on the authority of Mr. Charles Gordon, mentions one at Elmstead,
adding that the bird appeared again in the same locality in 1861. Mr.
Howard Saunders and Lord Lilford informed the editor that in the summer
of 1871 they each observed, in Surrey and Northamptonshire respectively,
a bird of this species, which probably had a nest. Messrs. Sheppard and
Whitear speak of a nest said to have been found in a garden near Ormsby,
in Norfolk; but the eggs formerly in Mr. Scales’s collection, which it
has been thought were taken in that county, were really brought from
Holland, and the editor is not aware of any collector who can boast the
possession of eggs of this species laid in Britain.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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