Wild Bird Sanctuaries

Abstract

A COMMITTEE has been formed in Manchester, with the Earl of Stamford as chairman, to perpetuate the name of the late T. A. Coward, an honorary keeper of the vertebrate collection at Manchester Museum and an eminent ornithologist, by purchasing two wild bird's sanctuaries in Cheshire. It has also been decided by the Lancashire and Cheshire Fauna Committee to dedicate Part 2 of its “Check List of the Fauna of Lancashire and Cheshire” to the late Mr. Coward the first part, published in 1930, was dedicated to the memory of Mr. Linnaeus Greening. Of the two memorial sanctuaries, Cotterills Clough, a hanging wood on the River Boiling within sight of Coward's home at Bowdon, has yet to be purchased, though most of the second, the reed beds and woodland at Marbury Mere, have been acquired. At the former, Coward recorded the grasshopper-warbler in 1898, and thirty-two nesting species were recently listed, while at Marbury the bittern is a frequent winter visitor, the night heron has been recorded, and A. W. Boyd recorded 23 black terns on August 18, 1930 {British Birds, 25, 276, 297). The usefulness of certain wild bird sanctuaries for ornithological records and observations is amply demonstrated by those of the Norfolk Naturalist's Trust, and the reports of the Committee on Bird Sanctuaries in the Royal Parks, which have recorded some sixty nesting species in Richmond Park. Facilities for observation on nesting waterfowl at the late Lord Grey's private bird sanctuary have produced valuable information (Natural History Magazine, Oct. 1930) and the recently acquired sanctuary at Dungeness will, it is hoped, preserve one of the few remaining nesting sites of the Kentish plover (gialitis cantiana). The sanctuary at Liverpool Cathedral has proved valuable in observations on movements of city birds (NATURE, Aug. 5, p. 199).