NOTES. 383 



WHITE-TAILED EAGLE IN ESSEX. 

 We could distinctly notice a White-tailed or Sea-Eagle 

 {HaliaHus alhicilla) soaring over this park (Weald Hall 

 Brentwood) at midday on Saturday, February 6bh, It was 

 high up and being mobbed by a smaller bird, which I could 

 not distmguish. I could see the Eagle quite clearly throuc^h 

 field-glasses. It kept wheehng quietly round for nearly hatf- 

 an-hour, and then disappeared. 



Christopher J. H. Tower. 



OSPREY IN ESSEX. 



An Osprey {Pandion haliartus) appeared in this pai^K (Weald 

 Hall, Brentwood) from October 11th till the 24th, 1903. 

 When it first came it was very tame, coming and taking some 

 golden carp out of a pond in the garden, where some gardeners 

 were at work. Afterwards it generally took up a position 

 on the dead bough of a tree on an island in the lake, where it 

 was generally mobbed by rooks, for whom, however, it seemed 

 to have a supreme contempt. There is absolutely no doubt 

 about its identity. It was of course protected, and notice 

 was given about so that it should not be shot. 



An Osprey, presumably the same bird with more mature 

 plumage, came again the follo\ving year, staying about a 

 week. 



Christopher J. H. Tower. 



POCHARD NESTING IN NORTH KENT. 



On April 29th, 1907, I found a nest of the Pochard {Fuligula 

 fcrina) on the marshes in the north of Kent, in a district which 

 need not be precisely specified. This is the first authenticated 

 nest found in the county, and the only other that I am aware 

 of was discovered a year afterwards by Major R. Sparrow 

 in the south-west of Kent (c/. antea,p. 96). For several days 

 before the actual discovery of the nest I had seen and watched 

 closely two pairs of Pochards. One afternoon as a small 

 tongue of rough ground infringing on one of the " fleets " 

 (as all dykes are termed in Kent) was being worked for a 

 Shoveler's nest, a duck Pochard clattered cumbrously from 

 a thick screen of reeds. The fact that she was alone 

 suggested the possibihty of a nest ; and next morning on 

 wading into the reed-bed, a duck Pochard again rose, not more 

 than ten paces from the bank, from a swampy ridge of soil 

 plastered with aquatic plants partitioning the " fleet." On 



