267 

 FIELD NOTES. 

 BIRDS. 



Food of the Tawny Owl. — Mr. Butterfield in his letter 

 in The Naturalist for July, remarks that " It used to be thought 

 that owls would not eat the Common Shrew.' Far from this 

 being the case I believe the Barn Owl takes more shrews than 

 anything else. I found in 28 castings picked at random from 

 beneath the roosting place of one of these owls the remains of 

 no fewer than 44 common shrews, and 2 pigmy shrews. In 

 addition there were the bones of 18 common mice, 7 young 

 brown rats, 9 field mice (M. sylvaticus) 27 field voles, 5 Bank 

 Voles, and 2 small birds, of the latter the exact identity was 

 doubtful. I have also noticed that a tame Tawny Owl ate 

 shrews with relish, bolting them whole like mice. It certainly 

 liked them and had no antipathy to them such as is exhibited 

 by cats and dogs. — (Miss) Frances Pitt, Bridgnorth. 



Qoldcrests (Regulus regulus) in the Lake District. — 

 Many birds suffered during the terrible winter of 1916-17, and 

 the Goldcrest was hit so hard that in many parts of the country 

 it was extirpated. Here in North-west Hertfordshire, where 

 prior to 1917 it was a common resident, I have neither seen nor 

 heard one for eighteen months, and I sought in vain for the 

 bird in many of its haunts in Carnarvon, Denbigh and Merioneth 

 in the summer of that year. It was therefore with very lively 

 pleasure that I heard about half-a-dozen singing in mid-June 

 this year in the woods of Patterdale and the lower part of 

 Grisedale, and a like number a week later about Rosthwaite 

 in Borrowdale. That some Goldcrests survive in these shel- 

 tered valleys is good augury for their ultimate re-occupation of 

 bleaker regions. — Chas. Oldham, Berkhamsted, Herts. 



Greater Spotted Woodpecker (Dryobates major) in 

 Westmorland. — The Greater Spotted Woodpecker is perhaps 

 sufficiently rare in Westmorland to justify a note of its occur- 

 rence during the nesting season. I came across a pair in Naddle 

 Forest, close to the shore of Haweswater, on June 13th, my 

 attention being attracted to the birds by their loud, staccato 

 notes of alarm, tcheck, tcheck. Time pressed, and I was unable 

 to locate the nest-hole, but the behaviour of the birds left no 

 doubt in my mind that they were interested in a brood. Many 

 of the trees about the spot bore evidence of the birds' search 

 for insects, and I noticed many hazel nuts which had been 

 wedged into crevices and hacked open, Nuthatch-fashion, a 

 habit perhaps more common than is generally supposed. Not 

 only are hazel nuts treated in this way, but, as I noticed twenty 

 years ago, when living at Alderly Edge in Cheshire, oak-apple 

 galls were sometimes wedged into crevices of tree trunks for 

 convenience in hacking out the contained larvae. — Chas. 

 Oldham, Berkhamsted, Herts. 



1918 Aug. 1 . 



