Home - keeping Emigrants
Another bird query concerns the refusal of small migrants to emigrate. It is roundly asserted that the blackcap, the nearest rival to the nightingale in song, has been seen this winter in various places. Doubtless, as we are continually warned, it is very easy to mistake a marsh tit for a blackcap, and at this date there is no song to set us right. But there is just one migrant warbler which makes song-like noises in winter and that is the chiff-chaff. This warbler has been seen and heard in my immediate neighbourhood this winter. There is, I think, no doubt about the fact and fortunately it does not much resemble any other bird except its cousin the willow-warbler, which also is a migrant. Could not the photographers resolve all doubts? Mr. Bayliss Smith, in a most original and beautiful book (British Waders in their Haunts. Bell and Sons. 21s.), has given us " close-ups " of some of the shyest birds ; and these warblers are singularly tame.
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