A Single Migrant A ship coming up the Thames estuary
last week was boarded by a wheatear, which stayed for some while on board. This wagtail-like bird, which is one of the first to come in spring, enjoys a very desultory autumn migration. It drifts rather than flies south and though fairly large companies are seen from time to time, on the coast of Norfolk and elsewhere, the birds often drift one by one or three by three. Personally I have more than once seen three arrive in a garden on their southerly route. They are not afraid of London, either in spring or autumn and seem to nurse a special preference for Hampstead. One wonders whether the number of birds that rest on ships and are carried out of the normal line of their journey, lose direction at all. A wheatear that leaves the ship in the Pool of London must find its surrounding; very baffling. The swallows, which, some say, are unduly scarce, are still with us, but apparently they got into trouble some weeks ago in trying to cross the Alps and once again rescue work has been organised .by the kindly Austrians. It was a strange by-product of the Abyssinian war that in Italy on the other side of the Alps bird-protection regulations were suspended, everywhere except in Capri, presumably for the reason that the birds were desired for human con- sumption.
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