BIRDS 



Lancashire is rich in respect of its bird life. It forms one of the larger 

 counties of England, possessing an extensive sea-board, and is well endowed 

 with mountain and plain, with wood, river, and lake. It can consequently 

 present to the ornithologist a very representative series of species in the 

 majority of the avian families, and in most districts numerous individuals of 

 each. Situated, however, in the north and west of England, its position is 

 less favourable for receiving visits from the stream of migratory birds passing 

 to and from the continent of Europe than the eastern and southern counties, 

 where so many tarry for a time every spring and autumn. 



In general, the entire coast of Lancashire from the mouth of the river 

 Duddon to the estuary of the Mersey is fronted by an enormous expanse of 

 sandbanks, hundreds of square miles in extent, left dry by the sea at low 

 water. In Furness, the country landward of the high-water mark forms 

 a plain several miles in width, which rather abruptly rises to an altitude of 

 over 2,500 feet in Furness and Dunnerdale fells. The whole district is rich in 

 tracts of wild crag, elevated moorland and forested slopes, with abundance of 

 brakes and timbered parks interspersed amid the extensively cultivated low- 

 lands and the upland grass farms. In this portion of the county also occur 

 the largest stretches of fresh water. Lake Windermere, Coniston and Esthwaite 

 Waters, and numerous larger or smaller tarns. Many rare species of birds, 

 therefore, survive in the seclusion of this safe sanctuary, and hosts of water- 

 fowl find here unmolested nurseries. Within its boundaries still breed the 

 merlin, the wood warbler, the dipper, the raven, the carrion crow, the great 

 and lesser spotted woodpeckers, the hen-harrier, the white-tailed eagle, 

 and the peregrine falcon. To Furness appertains Walney Island, which 

 has long been noted as one of our chief safe nesting places for terns and 

 limicoline birds. At the southern extremity of the island there is situated 

 the largest of the two important gulleries in the county, the other being that 

 on Cockerham Moss on the south-eastern shore of Morecambe Bay. Leigh, 

 the historian of Lancashire in 1700, remarks that there were there vast quantities 

 of sea-gulls : ' in the breeding time the whole island is near covered with 

 eggs or young ones, so that it is scarce passable without injuring them.' 

 In the list of rare visitors to Walney Island, the Duddon Sands, or the 

 adjacent bay of Morecambe, occur the names of the barnacle goose, the 

 scaup, the redbreasted merganser, the avocet, the whimbrel, and the eared 

 grebe. During autumn and spring on migration, and in winter — 

 especially if severe weather prevail — thousands of ducks, geese, swans, curlews, 

 and dunlins find these sands an inexhaustible feeding ground. 



The coast between Morecambe Bay and the boundary of Cheshire is 

 indented by the estuaries of the Lune, the Wyre, the Ribble, and the 

 Mersey. The greater part of the long sea line of this region is fringed 

 with sand dunes varying from one to four miles in width, and from 20 to 



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