1902.
The year opened with heavy floods in the Derwent Valley on the melting of the snow. Near Matlock the river rose over ten feet. Here a Bittern was shot about Jan. 2nd, and early in February a Waxwing was also killed at Matlock Bridge (R. Hall).
At the beginning of March a flock of four or five Great Black-backed Gulls were seen at close quarters one misty morning in the Dove Valley near Alsop Station (J. Henderson). Several Great Snipe were shot in the course of the winter in the low country round Derby. A very pretty Blackbird, with a pure white head and bold splashes of white on the body, was sent to A.S. Hutchinson for preservation.
The Redshanks did not return to the meadow near Norbury where they nested in 1901, but two pairs were reported to me as nesting near Uttoxeter, on the Staffordshire side of the Dove; and Canon Molineux tells me that he found a pair breeding in marshy ground not far from Staveley; so that this species is beginning to establish itself in the north-east as well as the south-west of the county.
Both cock and hen birds were roosting in a Long-tailed Tit's nest at seven p.m. on April 28th. The nest contained eleven eggs, slightly incubated, and the head of one of the birds could be seen through the entrance-hole. The number of eggs in the Grey Wagtail's nest appears sometimes not to exceed three. A nest at Norbury contained three hard-sat eggs, and another at Repton three young birds.
A cock Pied Flycatcher was seen in the Callow Wood, near Ashburne, on May 4th, by Mrs. Henniker; and on May 7th a Cuckoo's egg was found in a Hedge-Sparrow's nest—rather an early date for a Cuckoo to lay in this district. Another Cuckoo's egg, found near Dovedale on May 31st, was laid in a forsaken nest of the Blackbird, which contained a single egg. A third, also laid in a Blackbird's nest near Ashburne, hatched out successfully, and the young Cuckoo expelled the Blackbird's eggs. Grasshopper-Warblers were even more numerous than in 1901. Two nests which I saw were placed in high tussocks of coarse grass, and were quite invisible from above without parting the grass. The Cuckoo's note was heard daily till July 9th, and
