38 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



brents were seen, and a grey -lag goose had been killed. 

 Halls' game list for the week was as follows : 



i swan i teal 



34 mallards and ducks i golden plover 



6 pochards i crested grebe 



5 wigeons 60 coots 



A few golden plovers hung about during the week, but 

 were unusually shy. " Hard fowl," i.e. golden eyes, tufted 

 ducks, and scaups, were seen in small bunches ; but they too 

 were shy and wary. So many pochards have not been seen 

 or killed for many years. 



The few larger gulls remaining here have been seen chasing 

 unwounded dunlins whenever they happened to fly near 

 them, but these quick-turning little birds are too swift for 

 them ; escaped cripples fared worse, however. The hooded 

 crows forsook the Breydon flats and marshes, and kept to 

 the open reaches and the seashore. I saw a dead gull clean 

 picked by them as much of it as was not frozen into the 

 ice on a ditch. One hungry fellow was observed making 

 strange efforts to get some food down his gullet, but his heart 

 failed him. Prompted by curiosity, the rejected morsel was 

 examined, and found to be a tablet of highly scented toilet 

 soap, much holed by his hard bill in trying to find, if possible, 

 a sweeter kernel ! Kingfishers have been observed sitting 

 miserably about on posts and rails, looking abject in their 

 hunger ; and even those who usually have no pity were sorry 

 for them. One came and tapped on the window of Halls' 

 houseboat. Whilst out shooting, on one occasion, he left the 

 door of the houseboat open, and a wagtail that had been 

 hanging around for scraps went in and cleared the fragments 

 off his dinner plate. 



One day when killing a wounded mallard by cutting 

 its throat, so as not to damage its neck (!) as wringing will 

 sometimes do, the blood dripped and congealed on the snow 

 on the forepeak of the punt. While he was in the houseboat, 

 a hungry starling flew down on the boat, and ravenously ate 

 the crimsoned snow ; and when driven away, it returned and 

 ate more of it. 



Halls said the 23rd was " a wildfowl day beyond all 

 memory " ! Some small return bunches visited Breydon on 



