We might mention several other lane-haunting birds. The red-backed shrike, the thrush, and the blackbird; the nightingale and the whitethroat, the wagtail, and that smallest of British birds, the goldcrest, may all be found in our lanes. But the shrike is too cruel a bird to include amongst our feathered friends. The nightingale seems to us more at home in the woods, and the thrush and blackbird in our shrubberies. The wagtail chooses only those lanes which have water near. The redstart, goldcrest, and others are local, and rather scarce; the diminutive goldcrest being chiefly found in our northern lanes, where nodding harebells are now beginning to peep out, in coy loveliness, from amongst the gorse and bracken-tangled thickets. W. Oak Rhind
Source: The Illustrated London News, July 8, 1882, p.47