26 
NATURE NOTES 
As probably many of the readers of Nature Notes are aware 
an iron fence, or rather railing, has recently been erected 
right across the head of the pond, and looking along those 
railings to my unspeakable pleasure I see a kingfisher perched 
at about eighty yards distance from me. Evidently there is 
a scarcity of fry at this end of the pond, and he flies away to 
the tiny island situate near the middle of the pond. 
Now with his glorious iridescent plumage glinting under the 
rays of the bright early morning sun, the beautiful little creature 
hovers hawk-like some twenty feet over the pond, now like a 
flash of blue lightning he “ stoops,” and for a moment of time 
the rippleless surface of the water is broken by the downward 
plumage of the bird. Another flash of blue through the air, 
this time in an upward direction, for the kingfisher has flown 
into one of the willows growing on the island to devour his scaly 
capture. I would gladly spend a long hour watching this charm- 
ing feathered fish-poacher’s habits, but the time at my disposal 
is limited, and I have yet a good portion of the Park to explore 
ere I reach Robin Hood gate. 
From a clump of dry rushes growing on the banks of a little 
stream of water which feeds the big ponds, and in which a 
quantity of delicious watercresses of the real brown variety 
flourish, I flush a young hen pheasant whose tail feathers are 
just beginning to appear, and with a great to do she goes 
rocketting over the young trees, of what I have been told was, 
in years gone by, a duck decoy; but to-day not a trace of a decoy 
is there to be seen, and I am bound to confess that personally 
I hae me doots as to whether that ’coy ever existed, and as far 
as I have been able to discover, no mention of it is made in the 
County history. 
Leaving Pen ponds I make my way to the plantation where 
for years past a small colony of herons have nested, but not 
a sign of the interesting and beautiful birds is there to be seen 
this morning, and so 1 wade through acres and acres of glorious 
feathery bracken flushing three good coveys of partridges and 
setting afoot a hare and many a rabbit from their forms in the 
dense fern -covert. 
At length I come to Robin Hood gate, and having break- 
fasted at the comfortable little hostelry, which like the gate is 
named after that celebrated sporting outlaw of the olden times, 
Robin Hood, I walk through the peaceful hamlet of Kingston 
Vale, across Putney Heath, and down the steep hill to Putney 
town, where I jump into a well found and comfortable motor 
omnibus which lands me in Piccadilly Circus just as “ Big Ben ” 
is booming out the hour of ten o’clock. 
J. M. B. Durham. 
