THE TWITE OR
MOUNTAIN LINNET.
I have had many excellent opportunities of studying this wee songster whilst staying in the Outer Hebrides, where it is far more numerous than in any other part of the British Isles. In general appearance, flight, and habits it closely resembles its relative, the Common Linnet, but may be distinguished from that species by the fact that it has a longer tail and more slender form, a yellow beak, and lacks the crimson colouring on its head and breast.
The female is distinguished from the male by the fact that she is lighter-coloured, and has no crimson on her rump.
Young Twites resemble their mother in appearance.
The song of the cock is a very pleasant little performance, somewhat similar to that of the Linnet, although not equal to it either in strength or sweetness. I have frequently heard the bird singing on the top of a stone wall within a few feet of his mate sitting on her nest in the honeysuckle shown in our illustration. He occasionally varied this kind of exercise by pouring forth his music whilst fluttering through the air from one side of the garden to the other.
TWITE’S NEST AND EGGS.
Numbers of male Twites roost every night during the spring amongst some stunted alder bushes growing close to the house of an old friend of mine in the Western Isles, and enliven the whole place each fine evening by a volume of twittering sound.
The call note of the species is somewhat shrill, and sounds like twite, from which the bird has derived its name.
YOUNG TWITE JUST FLEDGED.
It is said to breed in the North of England, but although I have met with the bird in great flocks, both in Yorkshire and Westmorland, during the autumn, I never discovered its nest upon the Fells. I have found it breeding on several Highland mountains, but as already stated, most numerously in the Outer Hebrides. How abundant it actually is in the Western Isles may be gathered from the fact that I have found no fewer than seven nests in the course of a zig-zag walk of a mile or so from the house of one friend to that of another. As an indication of the wide variety of sites chosen by the Mountain Linnet—as the bird is sometimes called—for its little home, I will mention the places in which I discovered the above-named nests. Two were in holes in a dry stone wall, the one containing eggs, figured in our illustration, at the top of a stone wall and sheltered by a piece of overhanging turf, which had been placed there to increase the height of the fence; one in a tuft of heather growing close to a half-buried rock; one in a furze bush where a Common Linnet’s nest might have been expected; another in a stunted gooseberry bush; and the last in an ivy geranium growing inside a small greenhouse, to which the birds gained entrance through a broken pane in the roof. On more than one occasion I have found a nest, containing eggs or young ones, under an overhanging tuft of grass growing from a crevice of rock on the small piece of North Uist Coast shown in the tailpiece to this article.
TWITE ON NEST IN HONEYSUCKLE TIED AGAINST
A STORM-SWEPT HEBRIDEAN GARDEN WALL.
A Twite’s nest sometimes takes a long time to build. I remember one that occupied a whole fortnight from foundation laying to completion. It is made of fibrous roots, dead grasses, and moss, with an inner lining of feathers, fur, or hair.
The eggs number five or six, of a light bluish-green or bluish-white ground colour, marked with reddish-brown and dark brown spots and streaks.