A Starling's Deception

Abstract

THREE weeks ago, or, to be quite correct, on September 22, I was considerably startled and surprised, on going into the garden at 9.30 a.m., at hearing what I thought was a wryneck's call in a tree not many yards off. I listened, and in a few minutes the cry came again clear and distinct as one hears it in the spring and early summer. I was astonished, knowing it to be a rare thing to hear the wryneck after the middle of July. I approached the tree (in which two or three starlings were chattering and whistling) and tried to get a sight of the supposed wryneck, but did not, although the call was repeated several times. I put down my failure to the thickness of the foliage and the ivy-grown trunk, somewhere in the midst of which the bird was doubtless in hiding.