ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM NORTH-
WESTERN IRELAND.
By Robert Warren.
It may interest some of the readers of 'The Zoologist' to learn that the White Wagtails (Motacilla alba) have again visited the island of Bartragh (Killala Bay) this season on their northern migration. Mr. A.C. Kirkwood, on April 27th, met a solitary bird in the stable-yard at Bartragh, and secured the specimen for a friend's collection. A few days after he met another bird at the same place, which remained only for a few days, and then disappeared. This bird was succeeded by a pair that were seen on May 4th picking up insects on a manure-heap in the farmyard, but they stayed only for a couple of days, disappearing, like the other bird, after they fed and rested. From the fact of these Wagtails having been observed during the spring migration on the island of Bartragh in 1851, 1893, 1897, 1898, and in April and May of the present year, it is more than probable that they pass over Bartragh every spring on their way to Iceland, but are not seen by observers unless northerly winds are blowing at the time of their passage, which cause some birds, from fatigue, to drop down on Bartragh, and feed and rest before continuing their northern journey.
The Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) are still remaining about the sands of the bay and estuary. On June 13th I observed several flocks which altogether might number one hundred and fifty birds, and in the midst of a small group, near Moyne Abbey, was a bird exhibiting the red plumage of summer, a very unusual sight in this locality, for out of the many hundreds of birds seen here in summer I have observed only two or three birds in a similar stage of plumage. The birds frequenting this western coast are apparently all immature, too young to assume the red breeding plumage. When at Bartragh on the 5th inst. I saw fully one hundred Godwits on the shores of Bannros Island, and all appeared in the light grey plumage.
