INTERESTING BIRDS NEAR LONDON.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Your correspondents at Hampstead and Sydenham have recorded observations of various birds that might hardly be counted upon so close to the metropolis. On May 21st at 6.40 p.m. I saw a heron while I was waiting on the platform at Mitcham Junction. (I have never before seen this large and conspicuous survival of our earlier feathered races except in the wilder parts of the New Forest, or in Sussex marshland, or up in Teesdal..) I wonder where its nest can have been. All the heronries must be well known to naturalists. Here in Caterham, nearly eighteen miles from the heart of London, those who have eyes to see may hope for almost anything that flies. But this is the first year out of twenty-one that I have made bowing acquaintance with a red-backed shrike. The first day he sat quite still and watched me bicycle past, the second he dropped a bumble-bee at my feet (it revived uneasily, to its own manifest surprise), the third he merely looked at me over the hedge, displaying no desire to meet ape further. I am almost positive that I saw a passing tern -one windy day at the end of April. Herring gulls pass over once or twice a year between the seasons, but always at a considerable height. Black-duck visit us much less frequently— quite chance corners. The shrike clearly had his nest hard by, . but I did not succeed in finding it.—I am, Sir, Sze.,
Previous page
