90 



Bird Notes and News 



on perches in the dark, and those placed 

 above the Hght have therefore to be 

 removed as useless, and a larger number 

 constructed to project over the eaves. 

 A further inspection was made on the 27th, 

 and on the 28th, and an interview at 

 Trinity House resulted in courteous con- 

 sent from the authorities to have the 

 proposed improvements carried out. 



The urgent need for efforts to meet this 

 great and growing danger to our mi- 

 grating birds, together with the difficulty 

 of doing so without interfering in any way 

 with the light itself, presents a problem 

 which bird-lovers are facing none too 

 soon. The pitiful waste of bird-Ufe was 

 instanced at St. Catherine's two nights 

 before the visit of the Society's repre- 

 sentatives. On the night of the 24th 

 there had been an immense arrival of 

 spring migrants, and some 450 were 

 picked up dead in the Lighthouse gallery, 

 while others of both killed and wounded 

 were carried over and must have perished. 

 The majority were Whitethroats and 

 Willow-Wrens, while the remainder be- 

 longed to the following species : — 



Swallow, House-Martin, Sand-Martin, 

 Wlieatear, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap, 

 Garden Warbler, Sedge- Warbler, Grasshopper 

 Warbler, Nightingale, Pied Flycatcher, Red- 

 start, Whinehat, Wr3nieck, Water-Rail. 



It will be seen, as Lord Montagu com- 

 ments, " that only insect-eaters are 

 included, and it is wonderful that many 

 of these small and fragile creatures, some 

 of them hardly bigger than large butter- 

 flies, should be able to perform journeys 

 across the Channel, a distance varying 

 from 150 miles to 21 miles, often in the 

 face of strong contrary winds." Most of 

 these little birds winter in Africa. Lord 

 Montagu adds : — 



" From St. Catherine's Lighthouse the 

 French coast is about 80 to 90 miles away. 

 When these 450 birds were killed on the night 

 of April 24th, there happened to be a light 



southerly Avind, with some intermittent mist 

 and rain, the very conditions that are most 

 dangerous from a bird point of view. Allow- 

 ing for a certain amount of assistance from 

 a wind of about 20 miles an hour velocity, 

 these little birds must have taken between 

 two and three hours to cross, flying at 30 

 miles an hour. It is interesting also to note 

 that the first migrants do not appear to reach 

 the lighthouse as a rule before from 9 to 

 10 p.m., when it is quite dark, while the 

 greatest slaughter occurs from 10 p.m. to 

 2 a.m., which seems to indicate that the birds 

 must have left the French coast at any time 

 between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. 



" No one can tell exactly why birds should 

 be attracted by a bright light. In the day- 

 time, when the sun is shining ever so brightly, 

 they do not fly upward out of sight in an 

 endeavour to reach the source of our light 

 and heat beyond our atmosphere. But a 

 bright light at night attracts all wild animals, 

 and it is interesting to know that migrating 

 birds only seem to be attracted by bright 

 lights on nights when there is no moon and 

 when the stars are also invisible. On even 

 the darkest nights, if there are only a few 

 stars visible, the birds do not fly to the light- 

 house in anything but insignificant numbers, 

 and it has often been observed that, after 

 a storm has passed, when the sky begins to 

 clear and one or two stars reappear, away 

 go the whole crow'd of birds which have till 

 then been flying round the light. Almost 

 one might imagine that birds could take 

 their bearings from the stars." 



The following is a Hst of subscriptions 

 received for the R.S.P.B. Fund for Pro- 

 tection of Migrating Birds, to May 30th, 

 1913 ; and the sincere thanks of the 

 Council are due for the generous help 

 which has made it possible to give Pro- 

 fessor Thijsse's methods a thorough trial 

 without trenching on funds so greatly 

 needed for other branches of the work : — 



£200 :— Mrs. Grove Grady. 

 £50 :— William B. Gibbins, Esq. 

 £25 : — ^Earl Curzon of Kedleston. 

 £20 :— Rev. A. L. Hussey. 

 £10 10s. :— Miss Ellen Gilmour. 

 £10 :— The Misses E. and R. Good ; Mrs. 

 Greene ; Rt. Hon. Lord Lilford ; Royal 



