ZIO 



FIELD NOTES. 

 BIRDS. 

 Separation of the Sexes of the Chaffinch in Winter. — 



Referring to Mr, E. P. Butterfield's note and Mr. R. Fortune's 

 comments thereon in The Naturalist, p. 75, it must be over 

 forty-five years since I controverted (in one of the then Natural 

 history journals, Young England I think it was), so far as 

 this district is concerned^ the statement in ornithological works 

 that the sexes of the Chaffinch separate in winter. I there 

 stated that here, at any rate, there is no seymration in winter, 

 both sexes always being seen together in about equal numbers. 

 I have never had any reason to modify that statement, until 

 a few weeks ago, when during the severe weather at the end of 

 December, or during the first few days of this year, there was 

 a considerable invasion of chaffinches (probably indeed a big 

 invasion, if one had had time to visit the different sides of the 

 town to see it). In the hedges, and on the roads near my 

 house, they were very abundant, and I even saw the bird feeding 

 in one of the streets in the middle of the town. All of them so 

 far as I noticed were females. But they were evidently not 

 resident birds, and were only noticed for a few consecutive 

 days. Our birds I have no doubt, were just as mixed in 

 the proportion of the sexes as heretofore. — Geo. T. Porritt, 

 Huddersfield, February 5th, 1918. 



Status of the Pied Wagtail in Winter in the Wilsden 

 District. — Mr. Booth {The Naturalist p. 77) hardly quotes 

 correctly from my note {loc. cit. December p. 391). What I 

 said was this bird ' almost always leaves this district in winter 

 to a bird.' Within a radius of a mile or thereabouts of this 

 town I could count on the fingers of one hand all the Pied 

 Wagtails I have seen for fifty years. I saw one specimen 

 here in the main street in the very hard winter of 1879-80, and 

 with the exception of two or three individuals, am not sure 

 whether I saw another until the winter of 1916-17, when one 

 was about my poultry run all through the winter. I see them 

 some times in the valley, especially about the sewage disposal 

 works. On the 13th of January last, I saw at least six pied 

 Wagtails at the Bmgley Sewage Works, and I saw them again 

 on the following day, but I have not seen one so far this winter 

 in this immediate neighbourhood, which is somewhat too ele- 

 vated for this species in winter. As Mr. Booth states, it is 

 very fond of the neighbourhood of sewage works, and in such 

 environment, its plumage presents a bedraggled appearance, 

 in contrast with those emigrants which have wintered further 

 afield, and will reappear in about another month. — E. P. 

 BuTTERFiELD, Wilsden, February 2nd, 1918. 



. Naturaiifit 



