Identifier: birdsofwaterwood00guth (find matches)
Title: Birds of the water, wood & waste
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Guthrie-Smith, H. (Herbert), 1861-1940
Subjects: Birds Photography of birds
Publisher: Wellington, N. Z. : Whitcombe & Tombs
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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sing lightly over the estuarinesud, delicately picking up flies and tinyinsects, as much a Wagtail in his flightsand runs and sudden changes as any GroundLark can be. Then, as the Flycatcher, hemay be seen hawking by the hour fromsome high chosen perch, perhaps the topof some tall fire-charred, broken bole, ormay be he has selected some little eminenceon a sharp ridged spur, where his view isfully clear, and where the snap of hismandibles, his airy convolutions and suddenexcursions, turn him into the Flycatcher. Metamorphosised again into the RobinRedbreast, he will do his share, too, ingarden work, keeping just out of hoe andrake reach, and picking up with short, deftruns, the white, soft, sleepy, disinterredlarvae of the green beetle. Often and oftenwhen gardening have I had one or twoof these cheerful little companions, quitefriendly but never overbold, and alwayswearing that veil of shyness so peculiarlytheir own. Never would the Ground Larkwear the abstracted, distrait look of an
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WOOD AND WASTE 123 English Robin, never would he be guilty ofsuch discourtesy as to sit, as does theRedbreast, like a stone, until he darts onhis worm, showing thereby that the wormand not your companionship is his realobject. My little brown friend would neverdo that, each of us gives a happiest inter-pretation to the others presence. Thoughincidentally the turned-over soil may beused later for other purposes, I am therenow, the Pipit persuades himself, to providehim those soft-shelled grubs, as white andpathetically helpless as babies. Seeing melonely at my work, I know he wishes meto believe that he has arrived with hischeerful chirp and ceaseless runs andflutterings, to charm the solitude, make thesun brighter, and the sky more blue.Mutual courtesy is always observed, on mypart no too quick motion or sudden throwingdown of tools, on his, an exit lingering andreluctant, for his departure, too, is likehim, little runs and pauses that carry himfurther and further, as if breaking thes

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