270 BIKD NOTES FROM EAST ANGLIA 



wild geese in Holkam marshes, estimated to number 

 about four thousand, became greatly agitated, flying 

 to and fro in the tumult. The result proved that 

 they were geese indeed not to lie low, for no fewer 

 than nineteen of them fifteen pink- footed and four 

 white-fronted were found next day scattered through 

 the neighbouring parishes, having been struck by 

 lightning. A black-backed gull, killed in the same 

 manner, was picked up at Lowestoft. 



On April 20 a woodcock, whose power of flight had 

 failed it during migration, was picked up on the beach. 

 On May 7 an ortolan bunting was found entangled in 

 some garden netting; on August 2 a great crested 

 grebe was drowned in a tunnel net, and another was 

 caught at Sidestrand, ' very thin, the stomach packed 

 with its own feathers, which were apparently the 

 only thing it had to eat for some time/ Then 

 came the severe frost at Christmastide, with heavy 

 snow, to lock up the larder of many birds. On 

 December 28, fieldfares, blackbirds, thrushes, skylarks, 

 rooks, titlarks, linnets, twites, and goldfinches streamed 

 along the beach between the snow and low-water 

 mark. 



' So close were the flocks that no sooner had one passed 

 than another was in sight. Hour after hour, some of them 

 almost within arm's length, they struggled on silent and 

 weak for want of food . . . Kingfishers moped on stakes, 

 or died of starvation . . . This Siberian weather had a 

 disastrous effect upon the great-crested grebes. . . . One 

 bird-stuffer in Yarmouth had no fewer than eighteen brought 

 to him.' 



Mr. Gurney does his utmost to encourage the pre- 



