Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/117

Rh broad. The mud-flats on this part of Breydon water remain longest uncovered. On July 30th I found them at their old quarters, with many Black-backed and Black-headed Gulls, a Whimbrel or two, and a pair of handsome Sheld-Ducks. The Spoonbills were probably feeding on mud shrimps and worms; but a Heron which was near them caught a flounder. There was also an Avocet at the farther end of the Broad, where I did not go, the scene reminding me of days on the Nile, where a hundred Spoonbills may be seen in a flock, and Avocets also.

In the middle of July, as I learned from Mr. Pashley, there were a couple at Cley for a week or two, and another at the beginning of August, very likely the same which had been at Breydon; and it is satisfactory to know that the law was observed, and they were unmolested. There is really no more remarkable instance of what can be done by protection than the annual return of the Spoonbills in such considerable numbers to their ancient Norfolk haunts; but unless the Breydon Wild Birds' Protection Society receives more pecuniary support than it has had in the past, it will be unable to continue carrying on its good work. There is still a place in Holland fortunately strictly protected, where about six hundred Spoonbills nest in security (Sclater, Bull. B.O.C. viii. p. 10), from whence some think our stock come; but Mr. Patterson is informed that a new railway runs near their "spoonery," which is ominous.

The annexed copy (p. 84) of a photograph by Mr. G.C. Davies, represents a heronry at Reedham, supposed to be on the same site as the wood in which the Spoonbills nested in Sir Thomas Browne's time. It is just on the rising ground above where the marshes commence, and I learn from the owner that there were nearly ninety nests this summer. No doubt, when Spoonbills nested there, their food supply was drawn from Breydon flats.

The fifteen Great Bustards which were imported from Spain, and turned down, feather-pinioned, near Thetford (see last year's Notes), as I learn from Mr. Hill, who has obliged me with reports from time to time, remained on the same estate until the middle of June, when, their wing-feathers being grown, all but four or five took their departure, and two were almost immediately shot at Finningham, in Suffolk. Both the slayer and his master were prosecuted, but this could not bring the Bustards to life