April 



where suitable waters offer that it may suffice to state 

 that its absence as a breeding bird from Stretford is 

 due to the fact that we have no such waters to 

 attract it. Still, when the mallards move north- 

 wards on the spring migration, some invariably use 

 such waters as we have as a resting or baiting ground. 

 It was the 6th April this year when the first pair 

 appeared ; and mallards, generally paired, continued 

 to come, and pass on, until the i6th of that month. 

 The two drakes, and the duck with a young one, 

 shown in the pictures, were photographed at their 

 breeding quarters near Beaumaris at the middle of 

 May. 



Two other birds, closely resembling in many 

 ways the redbreast and wheatear, arrived on the 1 5th 

 April the redstart and the whinchat. Both are 

 redbreasts in their way, the redstart having bright 

 bay on the breast, and the whinchat yellowy red. 

 Although the redstart may at this time be seen in 

 the open, perching on the clods in the ploughed 

 fields like a chat, he reveals his closer affinity to the 

 robin by more frequently appearing in some woody 

 nook, or flitting about some tumble-down outhouse 

 in a neglected garden. In its form, its blue-grey 

 back and dusky quills, and the frequent rocking of 

 its tail, the redstart recalls the wheatear ; in its 

 flight and gestures generally it more nearly resembles 

 the robin, flitting restlessly from some low perch to 

 the ground and up again, or posing on post or rail 

 to eye the intruder with all the robin's haughty mien. 



113 i 



