107
DECOYS ON THE BLACKWATER ESTUARY.
By JAMES W. CAMPBELL, M.B., B.Chir., M.B.O.U.
(With One Plate).
IN view of Mr. W. E. Glegg's reference to Essex decoys in
his Address on Essex Pre-Ornithology (Essex Naturalist,
vol. xxv., p. 17), the following note, concerning what are evidently
the remains of two decoys hitherto unrecorded, may be of
interest. On March 24th, 1935, Mr. A. R. Thompson and I,
while visiting the heronry at Rolls Farm, near Tollesbury,
were surprised to find a decoy-pond in the fresh-marsh which
adjoins the heronry. There is no reference to a decoy in this
situation either in The Birds of Essex or A History of the Birds
of Essex, so in order to exclude any risk of confusion with decoys
already recorded in the neighbourhood, we visited both Skinner's
Wick and Bohun's Hall Decoys, numbers (D18) and (D19) on
the map in A History of the Birds of Essex, which lie respectively
approximately one mile west and one mile east of Rolls Farm.
Their positions were checked by the six-inch Ordnance Survey
maps and photographs were taken by Mr. Thompson. While
walking along the sea wall to Bohun's Hall Decoy, we found
another pond, also apparently a decoy, about a quarter of a
mile from our first discovery. Although it is remarkable that
two decoys should have existed on these marshes without being
recorded before, it should be borne in mind that this part of
the north shore of the Blackwater estuary has been strangely
neglected by ornithologists, for until I recorded it in 1934
(British Birds, vol. xxviii., p. 52), the heronry at Rolls Farm,
which is in full view from the sea wall, had existed for at least
thirty-four years—probably for very much longer—without its
presence being known to Essex ornithologists. At the present
day this is the wildest and least "improved" area of marshland
and estuary between Maldon and Harwich.
The particulars of these two ponds are as follows. Neither
is marked on the six-inch Ordnance Survey maps and the
Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton, informs me that no
twenty-five inch maps of this area have been made.
1. Pond in Fresh Marsh near Rolls Farm.
This pond is situated in the fresh marsh about a quarter of