Bird Notes and News 



61 



The Greater Spotted Woodpecker haunts all 

 through the year some big filberts for the 

 nut-weevil. 



" Although our list of birds is fairly repre- 

 sentative, there are curious exceptions. The 

 Wryneck is not found here at all ; only one 

 Redstart has been seen in ten years ; the 

 Corncrake is also absent, but I learn that 

 such is the case where it was formerly 

 abundant. The Tree Sparrow almost re- 



places the House-Sparrow. It has increased 

 in ten years from a few dozens to many 

 hundreds, which roost in a long stretch of 

 bamboos every night. Their song singly is 

 of a chirpy nature, but when they assemble 

 to roost such a chorus of song is heard as is 

 very remarkable. 



" The recent sharp frost and snow proved 

 a terrible disaster to birds, and I fear the 

 insectivorous kinds have suffered most." 



Birds in the War Area. 



Lieut. Patrick Chubb writes with reference 

 to birds on the Western front : 



"On the river Ancre a'bout 600 yards from 

 the trenches, there are numbers of Coots and 

 Moorhens, who are apparently entirely 

 oblivious to the tremendous battle all round 

 them. Before the ' push ' they were about 

 400 3'ards from our front line trenches 

 opposite Thiepval, and in front of our 

 field-guns. 



" Near La Bassee Canal I saw a beautiful 

 albino Swallow in among a crowd of ordinary 

 Swallows. It was pure white, with reddish- 

 pink eyes." 



Captain Antony Buxton, whose Bird 

 Observations contributed to the Times last 

 year, were reproduced in Bird Notes and 

 News, writes a second article (January 10th, 

 1917), in which he gives an interesting 

 account of the nesting of Montague Harriers : 



" I found the valley of that now famous 

 river the Ancre full of Hoopoes, and of a 

 mj'sterious silent bird which flitted from 

 reed bed to reed bed on one of the marshy 

 ponds so common in the valley, the haunt of 

 great and small Reed Warblers. The reeds 

 were too thick to get a sight of this bird 

 except when flying, and then only for a 

 moment, but, after several days of watching, 

 I got my telescope on to a pair apparently 

 courting in the air over the centre of the 

 pond. They were what I had suspected 

 them to be. Little Bitterns, and if oaly I had 

 had a boat I think I could have found the 

 nest. 



Montague Harriers. 



" On the Somme battlefield another hawk 

 might often be seen last summer hunting 

 low over the cornfields and that wild dull 

 stretch of brown battle ground, the Mon- 

 tague's Harrier. I never found his nesting 

 site there, but it was probably in the marshes 

 of the Somme or the Ancre. Nearer the 

 coast theie is a stretch of marsh between 

 the sandhills and the cultivated land, and at 

 this place I snatched three evenings ' Mon- 

 tague ' hunting. 



" There were several cocks hawking about 

 from time to time over the marsh, but it was 

 hard to find a place to sit down and spy from, 

 owing to the flatness of the country and the 

 numbers of large bushes which obstructed 

 one's view. On the first evening I saw two 

 cocks, met in the air by two hens, and un- 

 doubtedly the latter were fed by their 

 husbands, but I was unable definitely to 

 mark either of the hens down. Still, I had 

 a rough idea of the probable whereabouts 

 of the nest of one of them, and on the second 

 evening, with a friend, I distinctly saw 

 through the telescope the cock come over the 

 place where I believed the hen to be sitting 

 and thrust out its claw, in which was some- 

 thing—I believe a lizard. In a moment she 

 was up and circling towards him. When just 

 below and downwind of him, she turned a 

 back somersault, while he dropped his prey 

 through the air for 6ft. or 10ft. from his hand 

 into hers. It was done without effort on the 

 part of either, and looked the easiest thing 

 in the world, and so I suppose it is, for I saw 

 the same performance on several occasions, 

 and she never missed or looked like missing 

 her dinner. Sometimes the gift was made 



