Ornithological Trip

piece of comic invention was when, in the course of a wild dash on a motor-bike to reach the altar in time, Lloyd disappeared into some road excavations and his progress thereafter was marked by the rapid eruption of workmen from the same. Unlike Chaplin, Lloyd is not, in himself, funny. His humour is the humour of an ordinary person who finds himself in extraordinary situations.

By comparison the other four films presented were commonplace, although each was meritorious in its own way: "The Devil makes Three", a routine thriller attractively set in a snow-covered Salzburg and Bavaria; "No Highway", an exciting enough study of the problem of metal fatigue in aeroplanes, but with a weak ending. "The Best of Enemies", a tactful post-war handling of Anglo-Italian relations during the war in Abyssinia : this film was shot in Jordan and •the colour was pleasant. "Things to Come", Alexander Korda's film version of the H. G. Wells book made in 1936, was interesting if only to compare reality with the forecast made at that time. The characters were over-acted—perhaps deliberately—the sets elaborate but unconvincing, but the whole film went at such a pace, gathered such momentum, that although one never believed in it for one second, one couldn't take one's eyes off it.

F.J.W.

ORNITHOLOGICAL VISIT TO THE ISLE OF MAN EASTER, 1964

For the second time in successive years Mr. Craine took a party of four boys to the Isle of Man during the last ten days of the holidays. It was the second visit for G. M. Barton and N. C. P. Marsden, who, with S. A. Bough, arrived in Douglas on the "Manx Maid" on the afternoon of 15th April. R. J. Watts arrived two days later.

The main purpose of the visit was to trap and ring birds. This was done in the same way as last year, using mist nets. The total ringed exceeds last year's by 51, although a much larger percentage of the commoner birds, particularly house sparrows, were ringed. The only personalities were two blackcaps, fairly uncommon birds on the island, three goldfinches and three pied wagtails. Twenty-two birds were retraps, that is, birds already ringed. Of these two had been ringed in 1962, 14 in 1963 and the rest in 1964.

Although we did little walking compared with last year we made many more trips in the car, covering over 500 miles, equivalent to five times around the island. On the Thursday we were taken out by a local boatman on his daily trip round his crab and lobster pots. Crabs were quite plentiful but the lobsters were scarce. We were given three large crabs by the boatman, which were cooked by our landlady and brought home. On the Friday the boatman did his weekly trip to the Calf of Man with the stores and we went out again. The weather was much better than the previous day and we saw many sea birds at close quarters. He dropped us at one harbour and we walked across the island, about 11 miles, to be collected at the rocks on the other side. We saw the new Heligoland trap which the warden and his assistant had just built along a wall near the 23

pond and spent a little time looking around the well-preserved farm buildings which act as the observatory.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the holiday was the number of injured birds we found and looked after for a time. A dunlin with a badly damaged wing and a herring gull which lost the power of its legs had to be killed. Another injured herring gull we kept overnight and let go next morning, only to find a black-headed gull with its wing broken. It was obvious that the bird would never fly again but as it could walk about quite easily and seemed fit we decided to adopt it for a while. We had to force feed it that night but by the following day it was feeding itself from our hands on worms and insects. We let it roam about while we were trapping and it had a good wash in the river. Prospects of taking it back to York were discussed but unfortunately it died next day.

Although it was early for finding many nests we found quite a few of the commoner species and ringed two broods of song thrushes. A meadow pipit's nest on Langness had two eggs but one was accidentally broken. This was removed and the bird continued to lay, there being four eggs when we left. Also on Langness there was a hooded crow's nest with five eggs and a fairly accessible raven's nest. When we first visited the latter three of the eggs had just hatched and we were able to visit it fairly often and the youngsters were a week old when we left and about four times as big as when we first saw them.

An early rise on Saturday morning saw us start our departure from the island in the most atrocious weather we had had in all the days previously, with continuous rain. This carried on until about half-way across the sea and we arrived in Liverpool in reasonable weather and arrived home in York just after five o'clock. In conclusion I would like to thank Mr. Craine and our landlady in Castletown for a most interesting and enjoyable holiday.

Ringing totals : House Sparrow 133, Greenfinch 11, Song Thrush 10, Starling 8, Dunnock 7, Linnet 5, Mistle Thrush 4, Chiffchaff 4, Willow Warbler 4, Pied Wagtail 3, Blue Tit 3, Goldfinch 3, Blackcap 2, Chaffinch 2, Blackbird 2, Wren 1, Sand Martin 1, Great Tit 1; 18 species.

Species recorded during the visit: Red-throated Diver, Fulmar, Gannet, Cormorant, Shag, Heron, Mallard, Teal, Red-breasted Merganser, Shelduck, Mute Swan, Whooper Swan, Peregrine, Merlin, Kestrel, Partridge, Moorhen, Coot, Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Ringed Plover, Golden Plover, Turnstone, Snipe, Curlew, Whimbrel, Common Sandpiper, Redshank, Dunlin, Great Black-backed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Kittiwake, Common Tern, Sandwich Tern, Razorbill, Guillemot, Puffin, Rock Dove, Wood Pigeon, Long-eared Owl, Skylark, Swallow, House Martin, Sand Martin, Raven, Carrion Crow, Hooded Crow, Chough, Jackdaw, Magpie, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Marsh or Willow Tit, Tree Creeper, Wren, Mistle Thrush, Fieldfare, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Wheatear, Stonechat, Redstart, Robin, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Dunnock, Meadow Pipit, Rock Pipit, Pied Wagtail, White Wagtail, Grey Wagtail, Starling, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch, Yellowhammer, Reed Bunting, House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow.