2S6 BRITISH BIRDS. 



LESSER REDPOLL NESTING IN ESSEX. 



On July 16th, 1910, I found a nest of the Lesser Redpoll 

 {Linota rufescens) with three young, about seven feet from 

 the ground in the top of a straggling gorse bush on the Golf 

 Links, Woodford Green. Both birds were attending the j'oung. 

 On visiting the nest on the 20th I found it torn out. One 

 or two pairs of Redpolls have been seen in the immediate 

 neighbourhood for the last three seasons, but I have not been 

 able to find a nest before. C. L. Collenette. 



THE NORTHERN GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER 

 AS A BRITISH BIRD. 



Although there is much circumstantial evidence to show 

 that the Northern Great Sj)otted Woodpecker [Dendrocopvs 

 major major) frequently occurs in Great Britain, and especially 

 in Scotland, I do not think that any English sj^ecimens have 

 been recorded as having been examined since Dr. Hartert 

 described the British bird as distinct in 1900. It is advisable 

 therefore to put on record that a specimen kindly lent to me 

 by Mr. Caton Haigh, who picked it up dead on the sea-bank 

 at North Cotes on October 12th, 1898, has been pronounced 

 by Dr. Hartert to be D. m. major, as has a j^oung male obtained 

 by myself on the south Yorkshire coast on Seiatember 14th, 

 1909. Dr. Hartert also informs me that there is a specimen 

 of the northern form in the Tring Museum, labelled Irchester 

 (presumably in Northamptonshire), December 13th, 1889, 

 from the Rev. H. H. Slater's collection. It is noteworthy 

 that a great irruption was recorded in the autumn of 1889. 



With regard to Scotland, in the Annals of Scottish Natural 

 History (1908, pp. 217, 218), Mr. W. Evans showed that 

 those Scottish breeding- birds which had been examined 

 were of the British race and not of Scandinavian origin, as 

 had been thought possible. In the course of his investiga- 

 tions, ho\\"ever, he examined a bird shot in west Berwickshire 

 in March, 1906, which was undoubted^ D. m. major. In 

 the same journal (1908, pp. 209-16, and map, c/. British 

 Birds, II., p. 238) Mr. Harvie-Brown published a paper, in 

 which Le summarized the advance of the Great Spotted 

 Woodpecker in Scotland, and wrote briefly of the autumn 

 and winter immigrations of birds ^A"llich are no doubt of the 

 northern form. They seem to be annual immigrants in small 

 numbers, and are recorded eveiy seven or eight to twelve or 

 fifteen years in great numbers, recalling the " irruptions " 

 of Crossbills. Mr. Harvie-Bro\Mi states that normally the 

 migrants are mostly recorded from localities south of the 

 Grampians, but in years of irruiJtions the whole of the east 



