Winter Visitors
Birds are probably a good deal more numerous in England in winter than in summer, or is it that they are so much more obvious ? Any visitor to Norfolk or Suffolk and, indeed, to most counties must be astounded at the hosts of birds driven from the direction of Scandinavia. The most numerous are perhaps the starlings, many of which, ringed at Rossiter and other north European stations, have been picked up on English farms. Next in multitude comes the tribe of rooks and crows, and third the larks. Not one per cent. of these, so it is thought, are bred in England. We have plenty of nesting larks, but they prefer as a rule a common to a field. These huge flocks, often seen coming in from the sea, will possess a field almost as starlings will or pigeons ; and they have a certain unfortunate taste for young wheat. It is a strange fact that the lark, that favourite of the poets, is one of the handful of birds that is not protected in Norfolk. The farmers voted against it ; but this does not mean that the winter flocks are persecuted. Their hostility to the wheat plant is often deplored ; but it is very seldom that any farmer thinks them worth powder and shot, whatever his feelings
may be. . * * *
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