A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



however, of March migration is the advent of the summer migrants. The 

 first to appear is usually the chiffchaff, sometimes the wheatear, and every 

 now and again the willow-warbler, the earliest county record for the three 

 being 2 March, 21 February, and 20 March respectively. The chiffchaff, 

 the wheatear, and another March immigrant, the sand-martin, are generally 

 well represented by the end of the month, but the willow-warbler is rarely 

 much in evidence till the middle of April. The blackcap has once been 

 obtained as early as 5 March, and has been reported several times from Calstock 

 between the 2Oth and 26th of the month, but these dates appear to be 

 quite exceptional. 



Spring migration is naturally most active during the month of April. 

 Of the resident species the chaffinch, linnet, goldcrest, wagtails, and other 

 small birds still continue to be reported as coming in on the south coast, and 

 occasionally a small flock of rock-pipits. The teal and remaining snipe that 

 have wintered with us depart. Fieldfares and jack-snipe complete their 

 migration early in the month, and by its close only an occasional redwing is 

 left in the county. Wigeon, shovelers, scoters, and red-breasted mergansers 

 disappear before the end of the month. Black-headed gulls and golden- 

 plovers still continue to leave, often in fairly large flocks, and the purple sand- 

 pipers are rarely seen after the third week. Among the birds of passage the 

 turnstones and sometimes the whimbrels are numerically the most important, 

 though by far the most interesting is the hoopoe. This bird is by no means 

 scarce, and it is not uncommon to have as many as twenty recorded in a single 

 season. The golden oriole, a more social bird than the hoopoe, generally 

 comes to us in May, but stray specimens have been seen at Penzance and by 

 the Fal before the middle of April. 



The most popular feature of April migration is, of course, the coming of 

 such well-known summer migrants as the cuckoo, swallow, house-martin 

 and swift. The earliest authentic appearance of the cuckoo on the Cornish 

 mainland is 2 April. At St. Mary's, Scilly, Dorrien-Smith saw one on 

 30 March, 1904, and the same or another bird was seen near the same spot 

 by several observers two days later. As it is generally silent on first arriving 

 it usually escapes observation. Its incoming is in most years recorded by the 

 middle of April. The earliest date for the arrival of the swallows is 2 1 March, 

 for the house-martin the 3151, and for the swift 8 April. The swallow is 

 abundantly distributed before the middle of April, the martin by the end of the 

 month, and the swift by the first week in May. In the first half of the 

 month small flocks of ring-ouzels and common sandpipers come in on the 

 south coast, whitethroats appear in considerable numbers, and occasional 

 companies of tree pipits are observed. In the third or fourth week small 

 parties of whinchats and sedge-warblers have been occasionally recorded. On 

 29 April, 1 904, a flock of about thirty garden-warblers, along with various other 

 small birds, came in at Looe the only time this species has actually been seen on 

 migration in the spring. Throughout the month large flocks of wheatears are 

 not uncommon on the south coast. During the first week in May the wood- 

 warbler, nightjar, and corncrake return, and large flocks of arctic and common 

 terns are frequently reported on the south coast, with now and again a flight 

 of sandwich terns. By the middle of the month our latest summer migrant, 

 the spotted flycatcher, ventures across the Channel. Of our winter visitors 



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