Page 31 - July 2013 Kettle published 2

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hold furry prey like rabbits under water to drown
them which also serves to smooth the lay of the fur
to ease the act of swallowing it head first. After a big
meal the heron likes nothing more than to stand still
and digest for an hour or three and although they are
solitary hunters you will sometimes see a few herons
standing together in a field engaged in a sort of
sociable digestion party.
Halcyon Days
The Siberian winter of 1963 halved the population of
herons as rivers and ponds froze but they survived
because, unable to fish, they could take carrion and
rabbits. A species entirely dependant on fishing,
the kingfisher, was virtually wiped out by that awful
winter. The kingfisher has made a remarkable come
back but it remains very vulnerable to cold winters
such as the big freeze of 2010 and as such they are
on the RSPB’s Amber List. In Greek mythology the
minor Gods Alcyone and Ceyx were killed for the
sacrilege of referring to themselves by the names of
the much more important Gods Zeus and Hera. In an
act of compassion the other Gods turned them into a
pair of mythical birds which they called Halycon for
Alcyone and special Halcyon days were granted for
them, seven days either side of the winter solstice
when no storm would come while they cared for their
winter-hatched chicks. Thus it was a common belief
in days gone by, that during the days the Halcyon or
kingfisher was engaged in hatching her eggs, the sea
remained calm and sailors would be safe. Halcyon
Days has come to mean peaceful or idyllic times.
Unfortunately this meant that a dead kingfisher strung
up became a useful weathercock with country folk
believing that the birds beak would swing in the
direction of the wind to come. Often seen in the
corner of the eye as a blue and red flash the kingfisher
is best and easiest seen on the River Thames by those
who take time to familiarise themselves with the birds
characteristic flight call, a shrill double-note sounding
like "chi-keeeee" alerting to their presence as reliably
as the cackling laugh of the green woodpecker.
Another brightly coloured bird commonly seen by the
Thames is the jay but this bird hasn’t been associated
with such a noble concept as the kingfisher. Instead
the poor old gaudy jay has for centuries been a term
for a loose woman. In
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Shakespeare contrasts the gaudy jay with the sober
turtle dove when he has Mistress Ford say of a young
man she aims to help distinguish between an honest
woman and a trollop:
"We'll teach him to know turtles from jays,"
The red kite, a carrion bird, was once as common in
the mediaeval city as the pigeon is today but it was all
but wiped out in a long campaign of persecution that
began parish by parish with the 16
th
century Vermin
Acts and ended with the birds virtual extinction in all
but Wales largely as a consequence of the actions of
18
th
century gamekeepers.