258 



NOTES ON THE NESTING, SINGING AND SOME 



OTHER HABITS OF THE COMMON WILD BIRDS 



OF THE SCARBOROUGH DISTRICT. 



W. GYNGELL. 



What is here called the Scarborough district is included within a twelve- 

 mile radius of the town. It embraces heather-covered moors with their 

 slopes clothed with furze or bracken, more barren or cultivated chalk 

 hills, wooded ravines and lowland woods of deciduous or fir trees, corn 

 and grass fields, lanes bordered with brambles and coarse herbage, peaty 

 carrs, rugged cliffs, rapid running moorland streams and — within the 

 Borough — a mere of several acres. 



It would be difficult to find a patch of land of equal size elsewhere in 

 Britain providing suitable breeding haunts for so many kinds of birds. 

 It is noteworthy too that several species here reach the eastern boundary 

 of their breeding haunts in Britain. 



Within the Borough boundaries are provided suitable nesting haunts 

 for field, woodland, hedge-row and garden-loving birds, as well as those 

 resorting to cliffs, tall buildings and reedy ineres, whilst the protection 

 afforded by town restrictions upon shooting adds very materially to the 

 safety of any species taking up a town residence here. The wooded 

 Olivers Mount, the Spa Grounds, the Cemetery, the Castle Cliff, the 

 recently extended Mere, together with grass and corn fields that are within 

 the urban district are annually resorted to for nesting purposes by more 

 tlian fifty different species of wild birds (these are indicated by an asterisk 

 before the name of each). Whilst another dozen species might be added 

 as occasionally nesting in this circumscribed area. 



The following notes, each written down when the observation was made, 

 are now put together after twenty-nine years' residence in the borough, 

 the writer having previously resided and made bird notes for some years 

 in the County of Somerset. Summer holidays spent in south-eastern and 

 northern Britain have also helped him to compare the Avifauna of this 

 neighbourhood with that of Britain taken generally. A note of every 

 bird's egg found froin the year 187 1 to the present date has been made 

 at the time of finding. 



Even in a long experience it is not easy to make many really unusual 

 observations. The anatomy, morphology and physiolog}' of the house 

 sparrow or the herring-gull may be found in any really good book on 

 birds, but such records as the weight of a sparrow's egg or the date when 

 the Chaffinch ceases its summer song have been rarely if ever noted. 

 Such notes have a very bald look when appearing in print and rather 

 give the impression that their author is a ' soulless ' sort of person. I 

 hope it is not so. Only the commoner species of birds are here dealt 

 with. The full and complete local avifauna, including accounts of the 

 rarer species and accidental visitors may be found in that magnificent 

 work Nelson's ' Birds of Yorkshire.' 



*The Mistletoe Thrush ( Turdus viscivorus L.). By some people locally 

 called ' Mistletoe,' and by them and others often confounded with the 

 fieldfare when seen in the spring and autumn migratory flocks. This is 

 a very common bird in our town and district throughout the year. 



Tyrannous here, as elsewhere in spring, it drives crows, jackdaws and 

 other birds larger than itself from its ' claim,' whilst in autumn a single 

 bird will sometimes take possession of a garden rowan or service tree until 

 it has been entirely stripped of its red berries in which probably no other 

 bird has been allowed any share. 



Commencing to sing almost immediately the days begin to lengthen 

 { I have actually heard it on December 21st), its loud song may be heard 



Naturalist, 



