Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/139

Rh But, as was pointed out last year, Norfolk naturalists have not yet altogether learnt how winds govern the visits of rare migratory birds. What we have learnt is that rain and wind and mist and unsettled weather bring birds to Cley and Yarmouth more than fine open weather. These conditions delay a great many Warblers, Bluethroats, &c, on their south-westerly journey, and blow Gull-billed Terns and Greater Spotted Cuckoos out of their proper course, so that Norfolk obtains them. When, on the other hand, the weather is fine, the autumnal migration proceeds on its regular normal east to west course, the travelling birds pass high over Norfolk and Suffolk without descending, and for the most part by night, and no one sees them. Now 1897 has had an autumn and winter of quite exceptionally mild and open weather, in Mr. Preston's words, the "persistence of anticyclonic conditions resulting in an almost entire absence of strong winds on our east coast." To this fine weather we may fairly attribute the paucity of all kinds of migratory birds, without seeking for a further reason.

1st.—Two Common Gulls.

7th.—Shoveller at Hillington.

8th.— Green Sandpiper at Intwood.

9th.—Bean Goose at Yarmouth (A. Patterson).

11th.—Two Green Sandpipers at Haddiscoe (L. Farman).

13th.—Seventeen Shelducks on Breydon (A. Patterson).

23rd.—Snow-storm from the east. Partridges sheltering under hedges. Reports of Wild Geese and a supposed Polish Swan.

28th.—Good skating. A Little Auk brought alive to my brother at Northrepps, and about this time twenty others were notified in different places, one of which struck against a shed (Patterson), and another was picked up in a sheepfold, leading us for a few days to expect a repetition of 1895. Seventy Scoter Ducks were shot off Hunstanton; and seventy-eight Wood Pigeons were netted at Hempstead, which in some cases were voraciously filling themselves with the miserable remains of turnip-tops left by the farmers as too bad for pulling.

30th.—My son saw a Great Crested Grebe at Cley, and