A CHESHIRE BIRD 



FROM the standpoint of the London and south- 

 country ornithologist Cheshire is not a good 

 county for birds. But if it cannot compare with certain 

 eastern and southern counties, with coastwise areas of 

 considerable size, in the number of rare and accidental 

 wanderers which are included, with or without justifica- 

 tion, in the avian fauna, it has a large and varied bird 

 population. Within the county boundaries are hills 

 with extensive moorlands, marsh and bog, extensive 

 grazing land with numerous woods and coverts, a Royal 

 forest, and a coastline, short it is true, but including 

 sandhills, estuarine mudflats, and saltings. Best of all 

 the whole county is well watered, and that means insect 

 life in abundance, the great attraction for many birds; 

 rivers, streams, innumerable ponds or " pits " as they 

 are locally called, cross and dot the cultivated land, and 

 there are very many larger waters, known as meres. It 

 is, perhaps, these meres which account for the majority 

 of the interesting Cheshire birds, and no bird is more 

 characteristic of the meres, and of the county, than the 

 great crested grebe. Many students of bird life believe 

 that in Norfolk only is this bird common, though, as a 

 matter of fact, this grebe leaves the Broads in winter, 

 whereas in Cheshire, Shropshire, Yorkshire, and perhaps 

 other haunts it is an all-year resident. 



It is true that I have had no lengthy experience of the 

 Broads, but whenever I have been there in summer I have 

 been surprised at the comparative scarcity of grebes 

 on these much-talked-of waters. In England, without 



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