COUNTRY LIFE THE number of skilled observers in some parts
of England is now so great—and it continues to increase—that a strange visitor or a new habit in a resident bird has little chance of avoiding detection. The counties differ remarkably in this regard. Norfolk has always been in the lead, but the Flatford Field Centre will further help Suffolk to be a near rival. South Devon, too, begins to take the lead. Though the funds are meagre, I have seen no report, not even by the Naturalists' Trust, that is quite so full of surprising records as the ninth Report of the Devon Bird Watching and Preservation Society. Its eighty pages or so are full of novel observations worth the attention of scientific recorders. There is now no doubt that the warmth of the South West—sometimes called a Riviera—is tempting some migrants to become residents. For example: the secretary, the indefatigable Vicar of Stockland, near Honiton, saw a turtle dove on January 9th. This comely dove, with its beautiful flight, has changed habit—so it seems to me—in several respects of late years. It is much more numerous. It arrives much earlier, and now it seems more reluctant to go. Again, the report further corroborates the fact that a fair sprinkling of blackcaps—those lovely singers—stay with us the winter through. The one illustration of the report (which, alas, is sold out) incidentally stresses the war-ravaged state of Braunton Boroughs, over whose preservation the battle still rages. That famous botanist, Dr. Wright, photographed a carrion crows' nest, built in a tangle of barbed wire, not more than four feet above the ground. This most predatory of birds is everywhere encouraged by the worst aspects of our civilisation.
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