BIRDS 



prey, such as the kite and the buzzard, which were still fairly common 

 a century ago. The hobby is on the verge of extinction, if not quite 

 extinct, as a breeding species ; but sparrow-hawks and kestrels are still 

 pretty numerous. In the central parts of the county the magpie, once 

 common, is all but extinct, though the jay remains abundant, probably 

 because it is a more retiring bird and builds a less conspicuous nest. 

 Epping Forest is and long has been a stronghold for the hawfinch, which 

 is possibly more abundant there and at Danbury than elsewhere in 

 England. 



Our uplands if one may call them by that name are of small 

 extent, being confined to the extreme north-west corner of the county, 

 where the elevated undulating chalk downs which occupy so large an 

 area in the adjacent counties of Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire extend 

 into Essex. This down country, though generally open, is wooded in 

 places. On it the stone-curlew, which nests nowhere else in the county, 

 still breeds occasionally. 



Turning from the most inland portion of the county to that nearest 

 the sea, we find another region which, like the last-named, is of com- 

 paratively small extent, though possessed of marked individual features 

 namely the marshes, saltings, and mudflats of the coast. This kind of 

 country is probably of greater extent in Essex than in any other English 

 county. It lies chiefly round the estuaries of our rivers, especially the 

 Crouch, the Blackwater, the Colne, and the Stour. ' Marshes ' in Essex 

 are tracts of land which have been reclaimed from the sea and are now 

 protected from its inroads by strong sea-walls of mud. They are grass- 

 covered and valuable for grazing purposes. They form favourable breed- 

 ing haunts for the redshank, the peewit, and the sky-lark ; while the wide 

 ditches known as ' fleets,' by which they are intersected, and the quiet 

 reedy pools which are scattered here and there, are the homes of the 

 black-headed gull, the coot, the dabchick, the pochard, and not a few 

 other water birds. * Saltings ' (sometimes called ' bentlings ') lie on the 

 outer side of the sea-wall, yet are not strictly speaking sea-shore, for they 

 are covered only by the highest tides and support a rich flora of coast 

 plants. The saltings are intersected by innumerable muddy dykes 

 which slowly fill and empty with the rise and fall of every tide. Out- 

 side the saltings again and occupying, in fact, the very beds of the 

 river estuaries are very extensive mudflats, which are left uncovered 

 regularly at low water. Taking the whole of our coast, the area of 

 our mudflats at low tide must approach a hundred square miles. Here 

 during the periods of spring and autumn migration, and to a lesser extent 

 during winter, one may meet with myriads of wading birds, of which 

 the dunlin (called locally the * oxb'd ') is the most numerous ; while 

 curlews, whimbrels, godwits, knots, sanderlings, ring-plovers and many 

 others are more or less abundant, and not a few scarce and interesting 

 species have been met with from time to time. So numerous, indeed, 

 are the dunlins that over 300 are reported credibly to have been 

 killed on more than one occasion by a single discharge of the gun. From 

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