THE WRYNECK 



ITNX TORQUILLA 



LOCAL names in surrounding counties : " Snake-Bird," 

 " Cuckoo's Mate " (Essex) ; " Pay-Pay " (Surrey). 



STATUS IN BRITISH AVIFAUNA : A local summer 

 visitor, commonest in the southern and eastern counties 

 of England, rarer in the northern and western ones 

 and in Wales and Scotland. It has been obtained 

 once in Ireland, straying there on passage occasion- 

 ally. 



RADIAL DISTRIBUTION WITHIN FIFTEEN MILES OF ST. 

 PAUL'S : The Wryneck visits much more central districts 

 than the Woodpeckers, and has been recorded from areas 

 no more remote than Highgate, Hampstead, Kensington 

 Gardens, Barnes, and Battersea Park. Its regular breed- 

 ing haunts may be said to commence between the six- and 

 seven-mile radius, which includes Sydenham, Tooting, 

 Dulwich, Wimbledon, Dollis Hill, Hornsey, Plaistow, and 

 Lewisham. Beyond this limit, in the more rural suburbs, 

 the following localities (as well as various intervening ones) 

 may be mentioned as haunts of the Wryneck : Richmond, 

 Bushey, Kew Gardens, Chiswick, Brentford, Osterley, 

 Hanwell, Ealing, Twyford, Sudbury, Wembley, Harrow, 

 Kingsbury, Pinner, Ruislip, Mill Hill, Barnet, Enfield, 

 Waltham, Epping, Wanstead, Romford, Dagenham, Rain- 

 ham, Dartford, the Grays, Bromley, Croydon, Merton, 

 Banstead, Epsom, Esher, and Kingston. The Wryneck, 

 from the evidence available, appears to be rarer and more 

 local in Essex than elsewhere. 



This beautiful little bird reaches its London haunts 

 towards the end of March. I have seen it in Richmond 

 Park as early as the 23rd of that month. Although closely 

 allied to the Woodpeckers, the Wryneck does not possess 

 rigid tail-feathers ; neither does it climb trees in the same 

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