EAST COAST NOTES 



CHAPTER I 

 SOME BIRD NOTES 



ARRIVAL OF SWIFTS 



THE annual arrival of the noisy swift is always, to 

 me, one of the delights of sunny springtime, and 

 under favourable conditions so regular is it in its 

 movements that I look for its appearance on the I2th or 

 1 3th of May, although I have noted its advent being delayed 

 as late as the i/th of the month. The May of 1905 was an 

 unusually cold one, and I did not see any swifts until the iQth, 

 when two or three pairs were to be seen in wild and noisy 

 flight, circling around the old High Mill (now demolished). 

 They could not have been very happy, for food must have 

 been exceedingly scant. 



On May i8th of the same year I received a letter from a 

 gentleman living in the county, whose son wrote him the 

 previous day from Worthing, as follows : 



" On Friday morning, I2th May, at 3.30 a.m., I saw 

 hundreds of swifts, coming in great bunches from the sea, 

 very high up, and going north. I was at the top of a down, 

 Assbury Ring, 600 ft. up, and they passed very high over- 

 head, swarms altogether, in great flocks, and lasted three- 

 quarters of an hour, till it got quite light, and then I did not 

 see any more." 



It is rather strange that we did not receive our local con- 

 tingent until the ipth ; on, as recorded in my notebook, "a 

 cold, bleak day, with a strong N. wind, and masses of damp, 

 rugged clouds." They left us the same night, and three of 

 them reappeared on the 23rd towards the evening. Had 

 they returned temporarily to a warmer clime ? 



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