NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS R A P I S T R U M PERENNE ( L . ) All. A new vice-county record. Southwest of How Hill near an old pit by the crossroads of A l l and B1112, four miles east of Barton Mills, two plants found, August, 1968. Confirmed by Monks Wood Experimental Station. B.S.B.I. atlas records indicate only fourteen other finds of this species since 1900.
T h i s is one of three species in Central Europe, Mediterranean region and West Asia recorded by C . T . W , as weeds of arable and waste land. Rapistrum rugosum and R. hispanicum are already on record for East Suffolk. P. J. O. TRIST, Bury St. E d m u n d s .
G R E Y SQUIRRELS IN C H A N T R Y PARK. Owing to an error in transcription I was erroneously quoted as reporting S. carolinensis in Christchurch Park (Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 14, 134): this should have read Chantry Park.
C. W. PIERCE, Needham Market.
M O L E IN HOUSE. In September, 1968, a mole ( T a l p a europaea) found its way down two steps into the back room of my cottage. It was unable to climb up again unaided so I lifted it up and released it in my garden.
Miss BROWTON, Walberswick.
P I G M Y S H R E W AND SQUIRRELS AT H Ä R T E S T . A shrew spent over a week in the house here during October. It was seen running about in several of the rooms before it was finally caught by the tail in a trap set for something eise. Lord Cranbrook has identified it as a pigmy shrew (Sorex minutus). T h i s is the first recorded example from the parish of Härtest. We also had our first grey squirrel in the garden here during the spring, followed by a red squirrel—the first for many years—in September.
W . H . PAYN, H ä r t e s t .
C O M M O N SEALS IN THE O R W E L L . During the first half of September there were a n u m b e r of common seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Orwell: on one occasion I counted seven and think that there may have been more.
MRS. BRUCE-JONES, Orwell Park, Nacton.
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NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS WOODPXGEON
EATING
BÜTTERCUP
FLOWERS.
It
may
be
of
interest to record that on opening the crop of a woodpigeon shot early in August at Great Glemham, I found the Contents to consist mainly of the flowers and buds of Buttercups and what appeared to be the seeds of Goose-grass. In his book The Woodpigeon, R. K. M u r t o n includes Buttercup leaves in its diet but makes no mention of the flowers being eaten. M.
L . L Y N N ALLEN,
Wickham Market.
ROBIN FEEDING YOUNG W R E N S . On 15th June, our very tarne garden robin—a female—was seen carrying food to three young wrens which had apparently just left the nest and had been lost or mislaid by their parents. T h e robin fed the wrens for some time until they disappeared into a nearby shrubbery.
ANN M. LITTLE, Rushmere Road, Ipswich. A FEARLESS W A G T A I L . On 19th July, 1968, I was crossing a Clearing in Belstead Woods when a young pied wagtail flew straight at me and landed on my hand, which was holding a butterfly net. T h e bird was not frightened at all, stayed for some minutes and allowed me to stroke its head and back without concern, chirping occasionally. It pecked, unsuccessfully, at flies which alighted on my hand, and accepted greedily the bodies of butterflies which I held for it in my fingers. M y butterfly net was black and was tied with white tapes, so that I though that the bird might have been attracted by these colours, which are, of course, the colours of the parent birds. So I placed the bird on a twig with the intention of backing away to see if it would again fly towards the net. Before I had a chance to test this, however, one of the parent birds flew overhead and the youngster promptly flew away to join it. T h e youngster had obviously been out of the nest some time as it was able to fend for itself and also its tail feathers were well developed.
S. BF.AI'FOY, I p s w i c h .
A KINGFISHER BELOW THE W I N D O W . Outside my workroom is a small paved courtyard. T h e house walls make up two sides, the other two being clothed by a large vine and a pyracantha. On the ground in the centre is an old stone sink, some three feet by two feet in dimensions, and kept filled with water for the birds. One dull wet day recently, I chanced to glance out and was amazed to see a kingfisher sitting on the rim of the sink and peering intently into the water. While I watched, from a distance of about twenty feet, it several times j u m p e d f r o m side to side
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14, Part 3
of the sink and then flew up, first into the pyracantha, then into the vine, into which it disappeared for several minutes before Aying out again and settling on top of one of the walls. It held in its beak a small green object which I took to be a spider, but it could have been a small grape. After holding it for a few moments in its bill the kingfisher swallowed the object whatever it was, took one more look at the sink and flashed away out of sight. W. H.
PAYN.
WAGTAIL'S TRIPLE BROOD. T h e strain of pied wagtails which have bred in the garden here every summer as far back as I can remember, was apparently wiped out in the Great Frost of 1962-63 and we have had none here until this year, when a pair returned.
T h e i r first nest was built in the bank of a pond and the young flew in mid-May. Unfortunately all feil into the water and were drowned. In June a second nest was built a few feet away from the first in the same bank and as I took care to provide a platform of branches and waterweed below the nest, the young got off safely. T h e birds then built a third nest in the same bank and within a few feet of the first two nests and on 16th August their third brood took wing safely. W. H.
PAYN.