117 

 CORRESPONDENCE. 



NORTHERN BIRD NOTES FROM THE FIELD, ETC. 



Col. T. B. A. Tuckey records (The Field, Jan. 15th) that he shot a 

 Woodcock on Strensall Common on December 30th, weighing 14I oz. 

 It was of unusually dark plumage. The average weight of a Woodcock 

 is about 12 oz. Mr. Alfred Park, of Keighley, when out shooting on the 

 banks of the Aire, near Saltaii^e, had a retriever which brought a Little 

 Grebe found floating in the stream, from the mouth of which was a 

 fisherman's cast and sinker. The bird had not been dead long, and was 

 in good condition. The hook was fii'mly embedded in the windpipe. 

 [The Field, Jan. 15th). Mr. Granville Farquhar, of Dalton Hall, 

 Beverley, writes [The Field, Jan. 22nd) that on January nth he flushed 

 a Woodcock under a beech tree, on open grass 50 3'ards from the front 

 door. He flushed another one in the middle of a bare grass field without 

 a blade of cover and a hundred yards from any tree or hedge, and later 

 in the same day two in the middle of a dry stubble field. From The York- 

 sl'ire WerkJv Post, of January 22nd, we learn that a Grey Phalarope 

 appeared in Filcy Bay on January 13th. — R. F. 



IS THE RING OUZEL A BRITISH RESIDENT? 



In ' The Handbook of British Birds,' b}^ J. E. Harting (1872), the 

 Ring Ouzel is stated to be ' Resident, nesting regularly in the west and 

 north of England and throughout Scotland.' Can the Ring Ouzel be 

 considered as a resident species of Britain ? On reference to The 

 Zoologist for 1879, page 203, Mr. Harting, after giving alleged instances 

 of the Ring Ouzel having been seen in England in six counties in winter, 

 goes on to state — ' I am inclined to place it in the same category as the 

 Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, and I may add the Song Thrush, all of 

 which, as we know, are to a certain extent migratory.' But surely 

 these latter are not so migratory to anything like the extent of the Ring 

 Ouzel, which in most years leaves Britain almost to a bird. If Mr. Hart- 

 ing had inCjluded, say, the Corncrake, and perhaps one or two others, in 

 the same category, we should have been more inclined to have supported 

 him. It is now nearly fifty years since the publication of Mr. Harting's 

 work. I would like to ask, are there any more reasons now than formerly 

 for including this species as a resident? I think not. Even of the six 

 instances which Mr. Harting quotes, one, if not two, are doubtful. 

 Although the Ring Ouzel breeds not uncommonly on all the high moors 

 which surround us, perhaps not so commonly as in former years, I have 

 never seen but one in winter, which was on Cottingley Moor, either on 

 25th or 26th December, and it is not at all improbable this bird might 

 have left Englaad later on. — E. P. Butterfield. 



By no stretch of imagination can the Ring Ouzel be classed as a 

 resident. It is well known that very occasionally individuals will stay 

 throughout the winter months. The latest information given in ' A 

 Practical Handbook of British Birds ' (now in course of publication), 

 Vol. I., p. 416, is, for England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, ' Sum- 

 mer-resident and passage -migrant, occasionally staying throughout the 

 winter.' — R. F. 



At a recent meeting of the Leeds Naturalists' Club, Mr. E. Percival, 

 B.Sc, exhibited a skull and fore limb from a porpoise cast up on the 

 shore at Hayburn Wyke. Mr. R. W. Butcher referred to a recent article 

 by the Rev. Woodruff e -Peacock in the January issue of The Naturalist, in 

 which it was questioned whether Scheuchzeria palustris had ever occurred 

 at Thorne Waste, where it was now extinct. Mr. Butcher exhibited a 

 herbarium specimen from the collection of the late Robert Harrison, 

 bearing the date 8th July, 1831, showing that the specimen had been 

 found growing in pools in the central parts of the moor. 



1921 Mar. 1 



