The New Forest: Its History and Its SceneryWise, John R. (John Richard)
History
The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery
Wise, John R. (John Richard)
New Forest (England : Forest)
The goshawk (_Falco palumbarius_) and the rough-legged buzzard (_Falco
lagopus_) are very rarely seen; but, I fear, the kite, although so
plentiful in Gilpin’s time, has nearly deserted this, like all other
districts. Once, and once only, has it been seen by Mr. Farren. The
honey-buzzard, however (_Falco apivorus_), comes regularly over from
Germany about the end of May, attracted, in some measure, perhaps, by
its favourite food, the larvæ of wasps and bees, but chiefly by the wide
range of the woods. At Mark Ash and Puckpits I have frequently, for an
hour together, watched a couple, sailing with their wings outspread,
allowing the wind, on a boisterous day, to catch them, till it almost
veered them over; just circling round the tops of the beeches, sometimes
even “tumbling,” like a pigeon, and answering each other with their
sharp, short cry, prolonged every now and then into a melancholy wail.
Its favourite breeding stations are amongst the tall beech-woods round
Lyndhurst, in Mark Ash, and Gibbs Hill, Puckpits, Coalmeer, Prior’s
Acre, and the oaks of Bentley and Sloden. The nest is always placed in
the old one of a crow, or even the common buzzard, whose young by that
time have flown, and sometimes made on the top of a squirrel’s “cage,”
the birds contenting themselves with only re-shaping it, and lining the
inside with fresh green leaves. The fact of a squirrel’s “cage” being
used will account for the nest being sometimes found so low, and on a
comparatively small tree. No rule can therefore be laid down as to its
position. I have known the bird build in very different situations. Mr.
Rake found its nest in Sloden, on the forked bough of a low oak, not
thirty feet from the ground. In 1860 a pair built, not very much higher,
in the overhanging branch of a beech in Puckpits; and, in the same year,
another pair reared their young on the top of a fir in Holmy Ridge Hill.
And in 1861 and 1862, I knew of two nests, not fifty yards apart, in
Mark Ash, each placed nearly at the top of the very tallest beeches in
the wood, at least seventy or eighty feet from the ground. As so little
appears to be known about its breeding habits, I may as well add a few
more words. It seldom arrives till the beginning of June, when the
leaves are thick on the trees, and immediately commences its nest, for
which purpose it seems only to come, as it immediately departs when the
young birds can fly. Pairs have been known, however, not to lay till the
end of July; and, I am assured by one of the Forest keepers, not
sometimes till even the beginning of August; but these are, doubtless,
cases where the birds have been robbed of their first eggs. It differs
from the common buzzard in not flying away when disturbed during
incubation, but merely skimming round the top of the tree in small
circles, uttering its short, shrill cry, sometimes both male and female
perching on the branch of a neighbouring tree, and remaining undisturbed
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