The Water Ouzel

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Title:     The Water Ouzel
Author: Thomas Garnett [More Titles by Garnett]

The Water Ouzel sings very frequently, and as much in winter as at any time. Perched on a stone or a piece of ice, it chirps away at a famous rate, but its song consists almost entirely of its note _zeet, zeet_, which it hashes up in all sorts of ways, lengthening and shortening--now a crotchet, then a semiquaver, rising an octave or so, and then descending again. It makes as much of it as can be made, but with all its efforts its song is a very _so-so_ affair, all its syllables beginning with _z_, and almost ending with it too. Yet, although it is not much of a songster, it is almost a sacred bird with me, in consequence of the associations connected with it. A pair had built for forty years, according to tradition, in a wheel-race near to where I was born, and had never been molested by anybody until a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who was a great ornithologist, employed his gamekeeper to shoot this pair. I think the natives of Calcutta were not more indignant when an unlucky Englishman got one of their sacred bulls into his compound and baited him, than was our little community at what we considered so great an outrage. The gamekeeper narrowly escaped being stoned by myself and some more lads, any one of whom would have shot fifty Blackbirds or Fieldfares without any misgivings.

This bird very much resembles the Wren in its habits and motions, its nods and curtsies, and cocks its tail in exactly the same manner. Its nest is also similar in form to that of the Wren.

Some persons seem to think that it is impossible for the Water Ouzel to walk at the bottom of the water, owing to its body being of less specific gravity. I will not argue the point with them, but disbelieving my own eyes, I will endeavour to submit with a good grace; otherwise I should have said that I have repeatedly seen it doing so, from a situation where I had an excellent opportunity of observing it, the window of a building directly over the place where it was feeding. It walked into the water and began to turn over the pebbles with its bill, rooting almost like a pig, and it seemed to have no difficulty whatever in keeping at the bottom at all depths where I could see it; and I have frequently observed it when the water just covered it, and its head appeared above the water every time it lifted it up, which it did incessantly, turning over a pebble or two, then lifting its head, and again dipping it below to seize the creepers (_aquatic larvae_) it had disturbed from their hiding-places. Besides, its speed was too slow for diving. Every aquatic bird with which I am acquainted moves much faster when diving than when it is swimming or walking, and its course is generally in a straight line, or nearly so; but the Water Ouzel, when feeding, turns to the right or left, or back again to where it started, stops and goes on again, just as it does when out of the water. Yet when it wished, it seemed to have the power of altering its own gravity, as after wading about two, or perhaps five minutes, where it could just get its head out, it would suddenly rise to the surface and begin to swim, which it does quite as well as the Water-hen. The awkward, tumbling, shuffling wriggle which it appears to have, is occasioned by the incessant motion of its head as it turns over the gravel in search of creepers, which appear to me to form the bulk of its food.

Sir George Mackenzie seems to think that these birds destroy salmon spawn, and this opinion is prevalent in Scotland. If it is correct, it would go far towards putting an end to my partiality for them; but I rather think that they are unjustly accused, and believe they are catching creepers when they are supposed to be eating spawn. If this is the fact (and it is well worth ascertaining) they are rendering an essential service to the fisheries instead of injuring them, because these creepers (the larvae of the stone-fly, bank-fly, and all the drakes) are exceedingly destructive to spawning-beds, and as the Water Ouzel feeds on them at all other times, and as they are more abundant in the winter than at any other season, I think this is the more probable supposition. Of course, if Sir George Mackenzie has shot the bird, and speaks from his own knowledge, after dissecting it, there can be no doubt of the fact that it destroys spawn; but if he merely supposes so because the Water Ouzel feeds in the same streams where the salmon are spawning, it is very probable he is mistaken, for the reasons before mentioned. (May 29th, 1834).

[The end]
Thomas Garnett's essay: The Water Ouzel

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