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©rnitbological IRotes During a flDibsummer 

 Ibolifcav in the fl>ennines. 



By H. Goodchild, M.B.O.U. 

 ( Contimied from page 232 J. 



On Monday, June 22nd, my recorded observations began in the 

 evening with a pair of Partridges, which flew up from near where I had 

 been told there was a nest. I had heard one calling on the first evening of 

 my holiday, but these were the first I had seen. Later on in the evening (at 

 8.30 p.m.) I sighted the first Wheatear I had come across, a male. He 

 seemed to be uneasy and concerned about my watching him (from the sky- 

 line of a small steep rise) and flitted from the tops of boulders to the top of 

 a stone wall and back again, calling " Chat ! Chat ! " at intervals. Over the 

 highest lying patches of rushes and swamps, right at the foot of the hills, I 

 heard Snipe drumming at a quarter to ten at night, and also the sound of 

 what I took to be a Redshank. At ten o'clock, against the sunset sky, a 

 Heron flapped his way northward. A few of these birds are about, but they 

 are not common, and there is 110 Heronry anywhere near, that I know of. 

 Soon after, a Snipe was seen, and at half-past ten a Corncrake, a Curlew, 

 and Peewits were heard. 



On Tuesday, for the first time in this part of the country, I saw and 

 heard Sandpipers, a species common enough in some parts of Westmor- 

 land, and in the low ground again heard the Corn Bunting. The latter bird 

 was not noticed anywhere near the village I was staying in, which was 

 about 600 feet altitude, and my notesonly record the Common Bunting in 

 the lower parts of the Eden Valley. 



The next day yielded observations of several Redshanks, no less than 

 five being seen in sight at once, some coming near enough to me for me to 

 make sketches of them on the wing. Peewits had formed themselves into 

 considerable flocks and I saw about a hundred of them together. 



I had long intended paying a visit to a ueighboui iug wood, just below 

 the line of " fell pastures," and anticipated interesting finds. This 

 particular wood was composed chiefly of hazel bushes, with some ash and 

 oak trees interpersed with them and at the top edges, hawthorn bushes 

 which thinned out towards the open ground. A careful search of the wood 

 seemed to show that the nesting season was about over and that the young 

 broods had been taken away by their parents to more open country. An 

 immature Robin was the only young bird noted, and the only nest discovered 

 was a large one high up in the finest ash tree in the wood. No trace of 

 living birds was seen about the nest and a long search of the ground around 

 the tree revealed not even a feather to show what the owners of the nest 

 were. I have little doubt, however, that it was the nest of a Carrion Crow. 

 A " scar," as the bare rock or earth where land has slipped into a stream, is 

 here called, was carefullv examined for Sand Martins' nests, but without 



