4-O Wild Life in Wales 



however, it becomes the winter resort of a large number of 

 different species. When I first made its acquaintance, in 

 February 1905, there were numerous little parties of 

 Pochards, Tufted Ducks, and Coots diving round its margin, 

 often close alongside the road and railway, while, further 

 out, large flocks of Mallards and Wigeon were idly dosing 

 away their hours of inactivity. Amongst the latter were a few 

 Teal, and in one little bay five or six Golden-eye and a Little 

 Grebe. All fowl were numerous on the lake that year, but 

 as in the following winter not more than perhaps a tenth of 

 the Pochards and Tufted Ducks returned, while the flocks of 

 Wigeon and Mallards were also nothing like so large, I 

 expect that in numbers they are all liable to a considerable 

 amount of variation in different years. Most of the fowl 

 disappeared each year about the middle of March, and 

 straggled back again from early in August up to the new 

 year, about which time they are generally regarded as being 

 most numerous. In 1905, a flock approximating a couple of 

 hundred ducks, of which perhaps a third might be Wigeon, 

 was not an unusual spectacle ; while of Coots there might 

 probably have been as many more. Collectively the diving 

 ducks could not have numbered less than a hundred, very 

 likely as many again. A goodly number of all these fowl 

 fall to the lot of flight-shooters round Bala, but on the rest 

 of the lake they are very little disturbed. 



The Wigeon is called Chwiwell or Chwiwiad, a name 

 originating, apparently, from its sprightly actions. In 1 905 

 there were about fifty on the lake up till a few days after 

 the 1 7th March : in the following year none were noticed 

 later than the 8th March : in 1907 twenty or thirty were 

 still there on the 23rd of that month. In 1905 one flew 

 whistling over my head on 27th August, flocks not appear- 

 ing till a month later. In 1906 the first flock was not seen 

 till 3rd November ; but on the i8th July that year I saw 

 one in very dark "ducks' plumage " (and therefore probably 

 an old male) with some wild ducks at the mouth of the 

 Lliw. Whether or not it had passed the summer here, I 

 had no means of knowing ; the keeper said he had not 

 noticed it. Shortly afterwards I saw the statement in a 



