30 NOVEMBER 1934, Page 16

Norfolk is of course a county famous for its birds

and its sanctuaries ; and at the moment a nice problem in bird migration is puzzling some of the keepers of the sanctuaries. Among the hosts of winter visitors are great numbers of grey or hoodie crows. They are seen flying along the coast and swinging a little inland as they travel farther south. Where do they go to ? A hoodie crow is very rarely seen in the south of England or even in the South Midlands. It is a comparative rarity in Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire. The

flocks do not stay in East Anglia, and, one would say, nowhere in England. Do they cross the Channel to the Continent? Some of us have a vivid memory from the winter of 1914 of the great quantity of hoodies all over the lowlands round and about St. Omer. Why these south-flying migrants should settle down in such a place and leave out South England where their cousins the crows and rooks multiply, it is difficult to conjecture.