A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



though several of them receive accessions during the winter, probably as the 

 result of adverse weather elsewhere. The majority of our ducks are most 

 abundant during frost, but in the average years wigeon are fairly common by 

 v the close of the month, and the shoveler, scaup, and common scoter have all 

 put in an appearance, the first-mentioned at times in considerable numbers. 

 The red-breasted merganser, purple sandpiper, divers and great-crested grebe 

 are generally reported before the beginning of November, as also are the 

 hawfinch, snow-bunting and short-eared owl. The fire-crest has thrice been 

 identified in October, but seems to arrive as a rule in November, or later, 

 often in the company of gold-crests. The stone-curlew, for which bird 

 Cornwall appears to be the northern winter limit, is rarely seen till November. 

 Among the birds of passage the sanderling is still in evidence ; the wood- 

 sandpiper is occasionally obtained, and the bar-tailed godwit often lingers on 

 our mud flats till far into November ; the grey plover can generally be seen 

 during the month on Marazion beach ; the grey phalaropc is rather uncertain 

 in the time of its appearance, sometimes showing itself in the early part of 

 September, in other years not recorded till the middle of November. 



Lapwings, golden plover, jack-snipe and full-snipe continue to arrive 

 throughout the month of November, and stray bitterns are not infrequent. 

 Severe weather in the winter months usually causes extensive invasion, and 

 during a hard frost the Lizard and Land's End districts become the temporary 

 refuge of an incredible number of redwings, fieldfares, thrushes, blackbirds, 

 starlings and larks. Both surface-feeding and diving ducks, too, become at 

 times very plentiful. When the severe weather extends over a large area 

 and is long-continued, the white-fronted, the bean-, and the bernacle-goose 

 may locally become fairly common, and both the whooper and Bewick's 

 swan may appear in small flocks in our estuaries and sea-side pools. 



In spring the migratory movements are not nearly so pronounced as in 

 the autumn months. Large numbers of birds, especially of the resident 

 species, appear to steal away quietly, and in such loose formation that their 

 departure is not noticed. It is obvious, also, that the majority of the return- 

 ing birds travel by another route, probably further to the east, where the sea 

 passage is so much shorter. Evidently, too, on account of the relatively 

 much greater width of the sea between Cornwall and the Continent, the 

 incoming of the summer migrants and the transit of the spring birds of 

 passage is feeble compared with the rush that occurs in the south-eastern 

 counties. 



Of the fifteen species recorded in the county list as birds of passage, six 

 occur regularly during autumn migration only : namely the grey phalarope, 

 bar-tailed godwit, greenshank, green sandpiper, grey plover, and black tern. 

 The grey phalarope in fact has been only once recorded in the spring, and up 

 till four years ago the black tern had not been observed half a dozen times alto- 

 gether during that season. Of the remainder, the knot, though at times a fairly 

 conspicuous feature in autumn, is as a rule a scarce bird in the spring ; the 

 yellow wagtail, though seen every year in March and April, never occurs in 

 flocks, as it occasionally does at the Lizard and St. Ives in the autumn ; and 

 the white wagtail is decidedly scarcer in spring than it is in August and 

 September. The whimbrel, sanderling, wood-sandpiper, and the migrating 

 turnstones, on the average of the last six years, seem to be about as numerous 



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