230



Mr. Allen Silver



Station, although in a district I consider slightly outside the pale.

It is only a few years ago that jays visited regularly the gardens of

the Firs in the vicinity of Clapham Park. I have never seen a wild

magpie (as apart from an escape) in London. Kestrels, especially in

the southern suburbia, I have noticed on a number of occasions

twirling and shimmering golden brown in the autumn sunlight,

mostly young birds on passage. The Missel thrush is not over

common, although I have met with it frequently on Clapham and

Tooting Bee and Peckham Rye Commons and in my own garden,

but it seems to disperse quickly after breeding, or altogether in some

districts before so doing. Redwings come in the hawthorn berry

season, and can be heard passing over at night often during their

proper season. I have seen fieldfares high up, but not perched or

frequenting any suburban garden. The skylark appears here and

there, and on all suitable spots sings and occasionally breeds close

in. This bird I have seen gradually driven in the south out to

Mitcham by the bricklayer, although it still hangs closely in at

Southfields and in the Garratt Lane district.


In winter the Meadow pipit occurs frequently, and I can

always find one or two to order and probably in company with

a Grey wagtail. I once saw two breeding cocks (Meadow pipits)

in full song on some waste land surrounded more or less by a small-

house residential area, and they remained on, and I could only

conclude the hens were sitting. The Tree pipit occurs occasionally

near a railway cutting in its season. Curiously enough, a Richards

pipit was offered for sale to me—unfortunately just dead—that had

been caught in some bird-nets in a field quite close in. The man

who first bought it treated it like a Skylark and lost it, for which

I was sorry, because it was a species I much wanted to keep alive.

Meadow, Tree, and Rock pipits I have found hardy and excellent

cage-birds, always neat and lively and long-lived. Pied wagtails

are not uncommon, but Greys in winter crop up in the most

unexpected spots provided there’s an old ditch or a little water.*

Willow-wrens breed on many of the commons and regularly pass

through the gardens in the autumn, often trying hard to get in the



• I once saw a passage flock of old and immature Yellow wagtails on Barnes

Common.



