Returning to-this spot an old apple tree stands right out in the meadow
like an island. There seemed just now the tiniest twinkle of movement by
the rushes, but it was lost among the hedge parsley. Among the grey
leaves of the willow there is another flit of motion; and visible now
against the sky there is a little brown bird, not to be distinguished at
the moment from the many other little brown birds that are known to be
about. He got up into the willow from the hedge parsley somehow, without
being seen to climb or fly. Suddenly he crosses to the tops of the
hawthorn and immediately flings himself up into the air a yard or two,
his wings and ruffled crest making a ragged outline; jerk, jerk, jerk, as
if it were with the utmost difficulty he could keep even at that height.
He scolds, and twitters, and chirps, and all at once sinks like a stone
into the hedge and out of sight as a stone into a pond. It is a
whitethroat; his nest is deep in the parsley and nettles. Presently he
will go out to the island apple tree and back again in a minute or two;
the pair of them are so fond of each other's affectionate company they
cannot remain apart.

Watching the line of the hedge, about every two minutes, either near at
hand or yonder a bird darts out just at the level of the grass, hovers a
second with labouring wings, and returns as swiftly to the cover.
Sometimes it is a flycatcher, sometimes a greenfinch, or chaffinch, now
and then a robin, in one place a shrike, perhaps another is a redstart.
They are fly-fishing all of them, seizing insects from the sorrel tips
and grass, as the kingfisher takes a roach from the water. A blackbird
slips up into the oak and a dove descends in the corner by the chestnut
tree. But these are not visible together, only one at a time and with
intervals. The larger part of the life of the hedge is out of sight. All
the thrush-fledglings, the young blackbirds, and finches are hidden, most
of them on the mound among the ivy, and parsley, and rough grasses,