Dave sadly records were not well recorded in the old literature, Mitchell has recorded them as singing in the neighbourhood of Manchester March to October 1818 1828,
there is also mention of them in the Cheshire records of singing at poyton.
They were a sought after cage bird and were commonly kept as such, I also feel they were just lumped as larks amongst the locals at the time.
You are always welcome to visit and look through the books yourself .
Thanks for your message, Paul - Ive only just found it! The Dunlin breeding record just adds to the list of displaced species due to rampant commercial peat extraction. The days of Nightjar, Turtle Dove and Tree Pipit appear to be long gone. In the late 1970s, Frank Horrocks and I had a long chat with Leslie Turner who lived in Swindon, but spent a lot of time on the mosses and in Botany Bay Wood. He was adamant that Wood Lark used to breed there and said that he hadnt confused the lark with the Tree Pipit - a far more likely candidate which was breeding for several years after our meeting. Do you know of any records of breeding Wood Lark in old regional bird literature?
Dave there are at least two mentions of Chats Moss reports of Dunlin breeding in 1871 ,and Tree Sparrows 1865, information from a nice proper hardback copy printed in Cross Street Manchester 1885, one of the treasure of the GM200 Club Library.
Leo H Grindons book Country Rambles and Manchester Walks, has a very early Manchester list, with Curlew Dunlin and Nightjar on Chats Moss, lovely 1882 copy
Keep Birding and looking at proper books
-- Edited by Paul Heaton on Tuesday 23rd of January 2018 10:15:21 PM
Ian, Id love to take a look at F S Mitchells Birds of Lancashire, chiefly to see if there was any recording done for the Leigh area, especially Chat Moss. Pennington Flash didnt exist in 1892, but our wild mosslands must have been a haven for birds. If its convenient, Im at :- jdavidwilson42@yahoo.co.uk. Thanks, in anticipation of a good read!
This is an excellent place to download pdf's of old natural history books for free:
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/Default.aspx
I've just downloaded the aforementioned 'Birds of Lancashire', and 'Birds of Cheshire' by TA Coward & Charles Oldham.
Just type a keyword into the search box at the top, click on 'View Book' when a title appears that looks interesting. When the book appears simply hover your cursor over 'Download/About this book' at the top of the page, right-click 'Download PDF' then 'Save link as . . .' and Bob's your uncle!
Thanks for the link, I've just downloaded and started to read the book.
Edit
I found several ebook reader versions at http://www.archive.org/details/birdslancashire00mitcgoog I can now read it on my Kindle. On the same site is an interesting article about the Black Pudding Bird.
-- Edited by Adrian Drummond-Hill on Thursday 20th of October 2011 12:51:49 PM
This is an excellent place to download pdf's of old natural history books for free:
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/Default.aspx
I've just downloaded the aforementioned 'Birds of Lancashire', and 'Birds of Cheshire' by TA Coward & Charles Oldham.
Just type a keyword into the search box at the top, click on 'View Book' when a title appears that looks interesting. When the book appears simply hover your cursor over 'Download/About this book' at the top of the page, right-click 'Download PDF' then 'Save link as . . .' and Bob's your uncle!
This book is wonderful on many levels. Rarities are well represented eg. Pallas' Sandgrouse all over the place, Wallcreepers at Sabden, Little Crake caught in a drain at Ardwick, but it is equally interesting to read that Goldfinches are "almost extinct" and the Wood Warbler is "not so common as the Willow-Warbler, but much more plentiful than the Chiifchaff". I never knew that the colloquial name for Little Grebe was Foot-in-arse either.
Many thanks to Ian for bringing the book to the attention of the forum.
I have a copy of the above in pdf format. If anyone is interested I can email them a copy 14mb . Feel free to send me a private message containing your email address. Best wishes
