NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 241
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
Common Buzzard at Chingford.—On February 22nd, 1926, in Gillwell
Lane, Chingford, I had a good view of a Buzzard, but although it flew
quite low I was unable to identify the species with certainty. On the
24th I saw the bird again, and so well that no doubt was left as to its
being a Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo). On the 28th, when I was in
company with Mr. and Mrs. Boyd Watt, the bird left Gillwell Park and
circled high up, near enough for us to watch it with our field-glasses. It
then settled on a tree, and for a quarter of an hour we heard it "mewing,"
and we occasionally heard an answering "mew" from a distance.
A. Hibbert-Ware (in British Birds, xix., p. 287).
Jackdaw daubing its Eggs with Mud.—Our member, Mr. J. H.Owen,
of Felsted, describes (in British Birds, xx., June, 1926) finding a nest
of Jackdaw, at Saling, on April 30th, 1926, which contained four evenly
mud-daubed eggs. Not a single egg in any other nest examined had
the least speck of mud on it, although the entrance holes to all the nests
were well smeared with mud. Mr. Owen was therefore compelled to
conclude that the mud-daubing on this particular clutch was deliberately
done; he noted that the daubed eggs were easily visible from the entrance
to the nest. Howard Saunders (Manual of British Birds) notes that,
to conceal its eggs when itself absent from the nest, the Jackdaw often
pulls the nest-lining over them, and rarely the eggs are smeared with a
coating of clay which disguises them.
Mr. Owen has kindly presented the set of mud-daubed eggs to the
Stratford Museum. Editor.