52 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



tall reed even more loudly and persistently than the 

 grasshopper-warbler, visits us no more, but the Reed 

 Warbler still slings its cradle between the upright 

 spears in every ditch, and from similar shelter comes 

 the grunting squeal of the Water Rail, whose narrowly 

 compressed body seems made to slip between the 

 tussocks of sedge from which only a good water-dog 

 will dislodge it. The silvery-breasted Grebes still 

 hold their own ; we hear of twenty-three in sight at 

 once upon a single broad. Owing to protection 

 afforded by one or two landed proprietors, ducks 

 such as the Gadwall, Pochard and Tufted Duck, breed 

 in Norfolk in much larger numbers and greater variety 

 at the present day than was the case fifty years ago. 

 In one district it is stated that the Garganey nests 

 even more commonly than the Teal. There is still the 

 buzzing of multitudinous Snipe and the piping of 

 unnumbered Redshanks. The blue-grey Montagu's 

 Harrier, with his darker "ring-tail" mate, still at 

 least attempts to nest annually. The Short-eared 

 Owl lays its eggs upon a heap of cut reeds, and the 

 Kestrel, in the absence of trees, has been known to 

 nest upon the ground in the middle of the fen. Thus 

 there is still left no small residue of the wild life of the 

 waterside. 



Let us leave the broad reach of Bure or Yare, where 

 the wherry men " quant " toilsomely, and push our 

 punt up this narrow side-stream between the tall and 



