NOTES ON LONDON BIRDS. 
49 
NOTES ON LONDON BIRDS IN 1894 . 
HE first remark in my notebook for 189415 “ New Year’s 
Day: thrushes singing in Kensington Gardens.” On 
January 10 I watched numbers of black-headed gulls 
floating down the Thames at the foot of Temple 
Gardens on blocks of snow, and saw an old great black-backed 
gull flying over the water. This is the first time I have seen 
a bird of this species in London, but there was no mistaking him, 
as he came quite close. When I first saw him some distance off 
he looked so enormous that for a moment I thought he was a 
heron. In former days the great black-backed gull used to nest 
at the mouth of the Thames, but it has long ceased to do so. 
During 1893 the most remarkable fact with regard to London 
birds was the return of the rooks to Kensington Gardens (see 
N.\ture Notes, 1894, P- 3^) > in 1894 we had an extraordinary 
visitation of sea-gulls. 
From the beginning of the last week in January till about 
the middle of March, numbers of black-headed gulls were to be 
seen on the Serpentine and Long Water. On February 22 and 
23 the water was frozen, and most of them left us tem- 
porarily — no doubt to look for food elsewhere ; but on Saturday, 
Februar}^ 24, there was a thaw, and a long row of about sixty 
gulls might be seen standing at the edge of the ice. During the 
next two days there were at least a hundred and fifty gulls to be 
seen, but from this time onwards their numbers diminished, till 
about March 20, when they had nearly all disappeared. Of all 
these birds I only saw one or two which were not of the black- 
headed species, and they were apparently kittiwakes. On Fri- 
day, February 15, I noticed the first black-headed gull, which 
had acquired the black (or rather brown) face, and by the 20th 
many of them were in complete spring dress. 
On March 3 a blackbird began to sing, and continued to do 
so more or less regularly from this date onwards ; and I heard 
the first perfect chaffinch’s song sung by a bird in Lincoln’s 
Inn Fields, where chaffinches are by no means common. 
A missel thrush was singing near the Round Pond on March 
18, and I noticed a pied wagtail there on the same day. 
The first spring migrants to arrive were the willow wrens ; 
they were singing merrily in Kensington Gardens on the evening 
of April 7. I had heard them and some tree pipits a few hours 
previously in Richmond Park. About this time one of the crows 
appeared to be sitting on the nest on the north side of the Long 
Water, but she did not continue to do so long, and I do not 
believe that any young were hatched this season. 
The first swallow I saw was flying over the Serpentine on 
April 18, and on the following day a reed warbler was singing 
by the water in Kensington Gardens. 
I noticed a goldfinch in Hyde Park on April 28, in exactly 
the same spot as I had seen one last year. 
