NOTES ON BIRDS 67
Driving slowly, I drew up to the bird, a Stone-Curlew, which crouched on
the road with head and beak outstretched. It allowed me to pick it up without
protest. My wife and I examined it, rinding no trace of injury, before releas-
ing it well away from the road. Upon reading the field description in
Witherby's Handbook we came to the conclusion that it was a young bird,
possibly strayed from the neighbouring county of Cambridge or Hertfordshire,
where it is known to breed. Although it is stated that it no longer nests in
Essex, it is interesting to note that Glegg in Birds of Essex mentions two
former Essex localities—about 100 years ago it was reported to breed in the
neighbourhood of Saffron Walden, and just over 50 years ago at Chrishall
Grange which is not more than a few miles from the place where we saw
the bird.
Robert H. Mays.
Hard weather visitors in the garden.—Miss Male and I have been very
interested to see an unusal collection of birds in our garden at Ilford today,
driven near to the houses, I suppose, by the hard weather. In addition to our
resident sparrows, starlings and blackbirds we had a Robin, a Chaffinch, a
Meadow-Pipit, a Wood-Pigeon, numbers of Black-headed Gulls and four
Fieldfares. We did our best to feed them but the blackbirds were inclined to
drive them away.
19.2.56. Majorie S. Johnson.
Great Grey Shrike.—Early on the morning of March 17th, 1956, I heard
an unusual amount of noise coming from the rookery near my garden at South
Benfleet. I found that most of the rooks flew at and around one tree and I
then saw sitting on one of the topmost branches a Great Grey Shrike which
did not appear to be at all worried by the rooks. After about a quarter of an
hour the shrike flew away in an easterly direction followed by one or two
rooks who soon gave up the chase.
Hobby.—I was working in a garden at Dagenham on May 13th, 1956,
when my attention was caught by a hawk flying in a northerly direction at a
height of about fifty feet. It was calling all the time that I could see it and
according to my notes the call was a high-pitched squeak. The streaked
undersides and barring on the underside of the tail were seen (I was without
field-glasses). The colouring appeared to be a stale grey tinted blue, while on
the undersides a lot of white was seen.
John H. Jones.