To a true lover of nature hardly anything can be more thoroughly enjoyable than a quiet hour spent in some shady spot early on a summer’s morning, whilst the dew is still upon the flowers, and before any sounds can be heard except those made by happy birds and insects.
In my garden there is a little dell embowered by trees, where I often spend an hour or two before breakfast for the special purpose of enjoying the company of my pet wild creatures.
On one side are five arches, formed possibly some hundreds of years ago, since the great stones are grey with age and picturesquely moss-grown and ivy-clad. Young trees, too, are growing here and there out of the crevices into which the wind has wafted their seeds.
In an open space before me are groups of stately foxgloves of every tint, ranging from purple through rose-colour to pure white. Some of them have stems fully seven feet in height, each bearing not fewer than a hundred and forty or fifty flowers.
Not only amongst these foxgloves, but in the lime branches overhead innumerable bees keep up a continuous murmuring sound as
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 they busily gather their morning store of honey.
Various tall grasses are sending up their feathery plumes, and in a special bed where only wild flowers are allowed to grow, teasel, hypericum, valerian, and bog-myrtle are delighting my eyes by the free, graceful way in which they make themselves at home as if in their native habitat.
Under one of the arches the birds always find an abundance of food, which I strew for them several times in the day.
There I see young blackbirds, chaffinches, hedge-sparrows, wrens, and titmice feasting and flitting about, quite regardless of my presence. One advantage of this retreat is that no house-sparrows come here to annoy the more timid birds.
The quietness and peace of this secluded spot is in marked contrast to the scenes I witness near the house. There sparrows reign supreme. They come down in flocks to gorge themselves and their offspring upon the sopped bread, rudely driving away many other kinds of birds that I would fain encourage.
It may be observed that I have not spoken of robins feeding under the archway, because only one haunts this spot, and he is my special pet, and elects to sit on a bough close to me warbling his sweet low song, and occasionally accepting some choice morsel from my hand.
When he was a brown-coated youngster I began to feed and attract him, and in one week he gained so much confidence as to alight on my hand.
He is now my devoted adherent, flying to meet me in different parts of the garden as soon as he hears my voice.
I am much interested, and I think he is also, in the development of the little scarlet waistcoat which marks his arrival at maturity. I saw the first red feather appear, just a mere tinge of colour amongst the rest, and now daily I see the hue is deepening. If bathing and pluming will tend to make him a handsome robin, he bids fair to outshine his compeers, for he is always busy about his toilet, first fluttering in a large clam-shell, which contains water, and then becoming absorbed in his preening operations, which nothing will interrupt but the appearance of another robin, who, of course, must be flown at and driven away.
Birds, however, are not my only visitors. Some tame voles or field-mice creep stealthily in and out of the rockwork and find their way to the birds’ feeding-ground, where they also enjoy the seeds and coarse oatmeal, and amuse me much with their graceful play and occasional scrimmages. Field-mice are easily tamed and made happy in captivity.
Last year I coaxed a pair of these voles into a large glass globe, and kept them long enough to observe sundry family events, such as nest-building, the arrival of some baby-voles, and their development from small pink infants into full-grown mice, and then I set the whole family at liberty under the archway, where they now disport themselves with all the confidence of privileged rodents.
By remaining absolutely still for an hour or two, quietly reading or thinking, one has delightful opportunities of seeing rare birds quite at their ease.
A green woodpecker, all unconscious of my presence, is clinging to an old tree stem near by, and I can not only hear his tapping noise, but I am able to observe how he is supported by the stiff feathers in his tail, which press against the tree, and how his long tongue darts into crevices in the bark and draws out the insects upon which he feeds.
I follow his upward progress around the stem until he flies away with the loud laughing cry which has earned for him the local name of Yaffle.
Hawfinches are by no means common in this neighbourhood, but one morning I was much interested to be able to watch three or four of these birds, which had alighted on the top of a spruce fir in this dell. Their golden-red plumage glistened brightly as they busily flitted from branch to branch, snapping off small fir-sprays with their powerful beaks, and chattering to each other all the while like diminutive parrots.
Now the early morning sun is sending shafts of brilliant light through the thick foliage, and bringing out special objects in high relief.
Just beside me is a large mass of grey stone, moss-grown and fern-shaded. The sun has lighted up one side of this; the rest is in shadow, so that it forms a picture in itself, and my robin has alighted on it as though on purpose to give the touch of colour that was needed.
All my readers may not have so sweet a spot in which to study nature, but I do strongly commend to them the delight of a quiet time spent alone out-of-doors in the early morning.
The air is then so pure and fresh that it seems to invigorate one’s mind no less than one’s body, and in the country the sights and sounds are such as tend to helpful thoughts of the love and goodness of the Creator Who has blessed us with so much to make us happy, if only we will open our eyes and hearts to see and understand the works of His hands.
Eliza Brightwen.