Water Rail Stabbing Common Snipe Spur-Winged Lapwings Nesting On

NOTES Water Rail stabbing Common Snipe At about 18.30 hours on 29th September 1989, while watching a Spotted Crake Porzana porzana from a hide at Porth Hellick Pool, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, I became aware of a struggle in the reedbed. Through a 45 X telescope, I clearly saw a Water Rail Rallus aquaticus repeatedly stabbing a Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago with its bill. The Snipe became partly submerged under water, while the rail struggled to remain standing on top of it. After three minutes the activity ceased, with the Snipe clearly dead. The Water Rail made no attempt to devour its victim, and other waders and two further Water Rails present nearby continued to feed quite unconcernedly. Peter Barry St Columbas, 1 Walker Crescent, Culloden, Inverness IV1 2LZ EDITORIAL COMMENT The Water Rail is well known to kill (and often eat) other birds, especially during periods of severe winter weather (e.g. Brit. Birds 55: 132- 133, 156, 275; 61: 264-265; 79: 397-400), but in this case the size of the victim is noteworthy. Spur-winged Lapwings nesting on rooftops Rooftop nesting by Spur-winged Lapwings Hoplopterus spinosus seems not to be mentioned in the literature, but at Kfar Blum, in the Upper Galilee of northern Israel, both sloping and flat roofs are now one of the most frequently used breeding sites of this species in the environs of the kibbutz. In northern Israel, the Spur-winged Lapwing has increased dramatically in recent decades. In the 1950s, it was rarely noted at Kfar Blum, but in the 1960s it started to breed around the kibbutz fields and eventually about the dairy farm within the kibbutz, occasional pairs even nesting on piles of stones and incubating their eggs between the legs of standing cattle; soon, the dairy-farm area had become crowded with the nesting Lapwings. In the early 1980s, one pair nested on the sloping corrugated roof of one of the sheds, some 4 m from the ground; by the early 1990s this habit had become widespread, and it has now extended from the immediate vicinity of the farm to roofs of other buildings within the kibbutz complex. The problem with rooftop nesting is that flies seem to be the only available food source for the chicks, which therefore have to descend to ground level to forage in normal fashion. How they do this is not known, but they are believed either to be pushed off the roof by their parents or to slide down drainpipes to reach the ground, some chicks having been found drowned in water troughs below the buildings. Spur-winged Lapwings are quite adept in defending their nests against normal predators, but it is strange that use of such exposed nest sites as rooftops should be so successful; perhaps this reflects the lack of trampling by cattle, human beings and tractors, which would be a high risk in such an intensely farmed area. Rooftop nesting by other lapwing species appears to be virtually unreported, 224 British Birds, vol. 88, no. 5, May 1995 225 although Ganguli (1975, A Guide to the Birds of the Delhi Area) stated that the ecologically similar Red-wattled Lapwing H. indicus often nests on flat rooftops in India. The habit is also well known for the Senegal Thick-knee Burhinus senegalensis in Egypt (BWP vol. 3). Steve Madge and Moshe Koren 2 Church Row, Sheviock, Torpoint, Cornwall PL11 3EH Woodcock perching in tree At 11.00 GMT on 24th May 1992, while walking through an area of tall Beeches Fagus sylvatica at Scarcliffe Park Wood, Derbyshire, I disturbed a Woodcock Scolopax rusticola at close range from a small, almost horizontal bough about 4 m above the ground. It flew down steeply to land about 6 m ahead of me, where it crouched for several seconds, with tail erected and fanned, before flying off. The Handbook states that this species does not ordinarily perch in trees, although there are a number of records of its doing so; BWP (vol. 3) makes no mention of Woodcocks perching in trees. R. A. Frost 66 St Lawrence Road, North Wingfield, Chesterfield, Derbyshire S42 SLL Post-breeding display by Green Sandpipers on autumn passage During 18th-28th August 1990, at the High Batts Nature Reserve, North Yorkshire, we watched two Green Sandpipers Tringa ochropus intensively from a permanent hide alongside the course of a stream. The stream bed was dry, apart from two small pools, each up to 20 m2 in extent and with extensive muddy margins, separated by a ridge of drier earth on which a Moorhen Gallinula chloropus had made a nest base. Over the ten-day period, the two waders behaved like a pair in full spring display (for the purposes of this note, they are regarded as a pair). They were seen to go through the whole gamut of classic Green Sandpiper displays: switchback-flight by the male; aerial display, with both waders flying in close proximity in a wide circle with butterfly-like wingbeats, the female alighting and walking on to the Moorhen's nest, the male then flying off to a nearby dead tree and landing on a prominent perch; and leapfrogging behaviour, as described in BWP (vol. 3). Other features included the regular use of a lookout post by the male, and also a submissive posture adopted by the latter, with head held low, wings drooped and tail fanned, in which he would walk around the nest (with the female in it); this second display would occasionally trigger the butterfly flight, but more often than not the male would return to the dead tree. The only behaviour noted from the female on the nest was her frequent habit of arranging the flimsy nest material. Apart from the normal Green Sandpiper flight call, a quiet contact call was heard when both waders were at the nest and an alarm call was delivered by the male from the dead tree; this alarm was described by SW as a 'harsh single note'. 226 Notes We can find only one other similar record (in BWF), but this involved only a display flight and not the extent of spring breeding rituals as described here. Colin Slator and Stephen Worwood 3 St John's Walk, Kirby Hill, Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire YOS 9DJ Attempted copulation between adult and first-year Herring Gulls In the evening of 1st May 1990, at Verne Common, Portland, Dorset, my attention was drawn by the loud mating calls of an adult male Herring Gull Lams argentatus. It was balancing, with outspread wings, on the back of a first-year Herring Gull, where it stayed for 15-30 seconds. The young gull was making the loud, whistling food-begging call used by chicks and juveniles of this species. The male's mate was sitting on a nest on a nearby chimney. The immature gull remained around this pair of adults for the rest of the evening, and at one point all three were perched together on a chimney, the young gull persistently begging from one adult. From the tolerance shown towards this first-year gull by the adults, it seems that the former was one of their offspring from the previous year. It is, however, unusual for a Herring Gull still to be associating with its parents in May of its second calendar-year. Charles E. Richards 62 Harbour View Road, Portland, Dorset DT5 1EP EDITORIAL COMMENT Dr K. E. L. Simmons has commented that 'Perhaps of most interest is the apparent long duration of post-fledging association between probable parents and young.' Little Owl hovering Late in the evening on 8th May 1992, while travelling west along the M25 in Surrey, L. G. R. Evans and I simultaneously spotted a Little Owl Athene noctua hovering about 8-10 m above the motorway verge, in the manner of a Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus. BWP (vol. 4) states that Little Owls occasionally hover 1-2 m above the ground, but I can find no reference to individuals behaving like the one we passed on the motorway. James Hanlon 40 Rancliffe Road, East Ham, London E6 3HW Barn Swallows roosting away from water, low down in Bracken At about 20.45 GMT on 12th July 1990, at the top of a small hill at Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, I disturbed four or five juvenile Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica from a roost in Bracken Pteridium aquilinum about 1 m tall. The area was British Birds, vol. 88, no. 5, May 1995 227 completely dry sandy heathland, with scattered trees, patches of Bracken and a mixture of shorter vegetation dominated by Heather Calluna vulgaris. Within ten minutes, at least two swallows returned, circled low over the Bracken and perched on the edge of the clump at a height of about 50 cm. BWP (vol. 5) states that, with the exception of maize Zea and the canopies of tall trees, communal summer and autumn roosts of this species are in dense vegetation growing in or near water; there is no mention of roosting in low vegetation in dry situations. R. M. R. James 19 Eastbrae Road, Littkover, Derby DE23 7WA EDITORIAL COMMENT The statement in BWP appears to refer to large roosts. Dr M. A. Ogilvie has commented that this small party of Barn Swallows seem likely to have involved a single brood, perhaps abandoned by their parents and therefore 'not knowing any better' where to roost. Mistle Thrush mimicking Rufous Nightingale On 21st March 1991, at Trosley Country Park, Wrotham, Kent, I heard in the distance what sounded like a Rufous Nightingale Luscinia megarhynchos.

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