Throughout the winter (excepting only the wildfowl) there exists no such conspicuous ornithic display as appeals to casual eye or ear--those, say, of the average traveller. Ride far and wide through these wild landscapes in December or January, and you may wonder if their oft-boasted wealth of bird-life be not exaggerated. You see, perhaps, little beyond the ubiquitous birds-of-prey. These are ever the first feature to strike a stranger. Great eagles, soaring in eccentric circles, hunt the cistus-clad plain; the wild scream of the kite rings out above the pines, and shapely buzzards adorn some dead tree. Over rush-girt bogs soar weird marsh-harriers--three flaps and a drift as, with piercing sight, they scan each tuft and miss not so much as a frog or a wounded wigeon. All these and others of their race are naturally conspicuous. But, though unseen, there lurk all around other forms of equal beauty and interest, abundant enough, but secretive and apt to be overlooked save by closest scrutiny. That, however, is a characteristic of winter in all temperate lands. Birds at that season are apt to be silent and elusive, but their absence is apparent rather than real. [Illustration: "SILENT SONGSTERS"] All around you, in fact, forest and jungle, scrub, sallow, and bramble-brake abound with minor bird-forms--with our British summer visitors, here settled down in their winter quarters; with charming exotic warblers and silent songsters--all off work for the season. Where nodding bulrush fringes quaking bog, or miles of tasselled cane-brakes border the marsh, there is the home of infinite feathered amphibians, crakes and rails, of reed-climbers and bush-skulkers, all for the nonce silent, shy, reclusive. [Illustration: BLACKSTART (_Ruticilla titys_) Abundant in winter; retires to the sierra to nest.] Their portraits, roughly caught during hours of patient waiting, may be found (some of them) scattered through these chapters. But the present is not the place for detail. The land-birds in winter you hardly see, for they "take cover."