Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/162

134 15th.—Wind W., moderate. Between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., a good many flocks of Sky Larks, mingled with a few Tit Larks, Wheatears, and Wagtails, were seen coming off the sea at Overstrand, apparently flying due west, i.e. against the wind, which direction was changed to north-west when they made land. They then followed the course of the cliff, rounding the highest hills, and frequently resting as if tired. The flocks kept by themselves, and each averaged about thirty-five larks. This movement had probably been going on several days before it was noticed.

16th.—W., moderate. More flocks of Sky Larks passing in the morning along the cliff in a north-westerly direction.

17th.—W.Larks passing as before against the wind. Hoopoe at Caister (B. Dye).

18th.—Grey Phalarope on New Buckenham Common (J. Cole). Hoopoe at Brandon (W. Howlett).

21st.—Hoopoe at Southrepps (H. Cole).

22nd.—Between 7.40 a.m. and 8.15 a.m. at least 1500 House Martins passed Overstrand, going S S.E.S.S.E.? [sic], all of them close under the lee of the cliff, where they were sheltered from the wind, which was north. Between 8.15 and 8.30 more than half of them came back again in an almost continuous straggling flock. The wind was very light, but at 12.30 a storm arose, which may have been the cause of these feathered barometers being so extraordinarily restless.

28th.—A walk through the bushes at Cley revealed no birds (wind W.N.W., moderate); but in the course of the day a Rednecked Phalarope and a Red-necked Grebe were brought in to Mr. Pashley's establishment, and a boy on the muds got a Sandwich Tern. Not a single Thrush in the scrub, which, at the end of October, is sometimes packed with them.

1st.— Immature female Little Bittern shot on Horsey Broad (E. Daily Press).

5th.—Fork-tailed Petrel on Breydon (Sir S. Crossley).

12th.—N.A Sabine's Gull, in the same state of plumage as those shot in Wales, and possibly a remnant of that flock, killed at Cley (H. Pashley). October is always the month in which it