NOTES ON LONDON BIRDS IN 1902 . 
HE thrushes in Kensington Gardens welcomed 1902 
with an unusually fine chorus of song : the weather 
during the greater part of the year was wretched, and 
I do not think that at any subsequent date I heard 
them singing so well as on New Year’s Day. On January 5, 
while bicycling to Richmond, I heard a chaffinch in full song 
near Barnes. On the morning of January 14, after a cold night, 
a small mixed flock of chaffinches and greenfinches was to be 
seen in Hyde Park, close to the bridge over the Serpentine. 
During the earlier months of the year the usual numbers of 
black-headed gulls visited us, and stayed until they were begin- 
ning to assume breeding plumage. Considering how many 
hundreds of the gulls there are, it is curious how rarely one sees 
any but the black-headed species. On February 1, however, 
I saw two herring gulls in Hyde Park. A redwing was hopping 
about close to a shrubbery in Hyde Park on February 17, and 
the occurrence of a bird of this species in Lincoln’s Inn P'ields 
on the previous day was reported in The Field. While walk- 
ing home from supper in Kensington late on the cold Sunday 
night of February 16, I heard brown owls hooting. I was in 
the Bayswater Road, and the birds must have been close to 
Kensington Palace. I heard an owl subsequently on the night 
of March 3, in Gloucester Terrace. On April 5, I found two 
apparently occupied nests of the carrion crow in Kensington 
Gardens. 
The morning of April 8 was very dark and very cold for the 
time of year. At about 9 a.m. I walked across Hyde Park, 
entering at the Victoria Gate. The grass was dotted with 
wheatears. They were very numerous on the western side of 
the Park, and even on the further side there were a good many 
between the Police Barracks and Hyde Park Corner. It is, of 
course, very hard to guess the number of birds in a given area, 
of which one only sees part, but there were certainly not less 
than two hundred wheatears in Hyde Park on that morning 
nor can there be much doubt that there were some in Ken- 
sington Gardens, and probably a good many more in Regent’s 
Park. These birds were merely resting in the course of their 
migration. In the evening, when my day’s work was done, I 
of course returned to Hyde Park, but there was not a single 
wheatear to be seen. 
A male redstart attracted my attention on April 10 in Ken- 
sington Gardens. He was standing huddled up at the foot of an 
elm tree, looking very miserable. The wind was blowing from 
the north with a suspicion of east in it, and it was distinctly cold. 
It was not until April 29 that I saw a brood of young ducks on 
the Serpentine; and with the exception of the wheatears and 
redstart already mentioned, I saw no spring migrants in London 
