COLLINGWOOD
INGRAM
ornithologist
and plantsman
Saturday 5 June 1915, New Romney
On my way back from Rye I found a meadow pipit’s nest by the roadside, and while I was looking at this the behaviour of a male yellow wagtail excited my attention. He was palpably uneasy and presently his anxious cries were taken up by his mate who had evidently been called from her nest somewhere in the adjoining cornfield. I retired a short way and was shortly after rewarded by seeing the male drop down into the foot-high wheat, but not until they had both repeatedly hovered over the same spot as if to obligingly point it out to me!
The nest contained five pale café-au-lait eggs and was prettily placed under the broad leaf of a small plant of butterbur whose function in this case was evidently that of an umbrella and parasol combined. The edge of the nest was practically flush with the ground, the sunken cup being lined with wool and black horse-hair. A little moss was introduced into the foundation.
Reed warblers are common in all the reedy sewers of the Marsh and wherever there are patches of blackthorn or other bushes growing
on the banks sedge warblers are almost sure to occur. Their song strikes me as bolder and louder than that of the reed warbler though there is a strong family resemblance between the two. The
second reed warbler’s nest (2nd June) now contains five eggs, showing that one must have been laid each day. The first nest has been partly demolished.
Ingram added at the foot of the page, ‘Five fresh eggs – no doubt a second brood.’
