rump ashy-grey, palest in centre becoming darker and merging with black at edges; upper-tail coverts black. Underparts — Ail white from chin to under-tail coverts, with a very slightly greyish wash. Wings — Primaries brownish-black with a small white crescent at the base when the wings closed; secondaries black; primary coverts brownish-black; rest of coverts black (primaries and their coverts were noticeably browner than secondaries and rest of coverts). Parts of scapulars, tertials and inner coverts white forming a large wingpatch when wing closed; this wing-patch was larger than on Pied, but probably not as large as on adult Collared Flycatcher. Tail black with some white at sides, but cannot say accurately how much. Bare Parts — Eyes, bill and legs black.
Nutcracker at Westleton 2nd November to 7th December by T. D. Charlton On 2nd November at 2pm my wife and I received a téléphoné cali from Kate Mares asking if we could confirm the identification of a bird which she thought was a Nutcracker Nucifraga caryocatactes in her garden. She had seen the bird twice that day, firstly at 1 lam then again briefly at lpm. We arrived to find that the bird had gone. Kate's description was a good one, and was strengthened further on the production of some battered eating apples. At 2.45pm the Nutcracker flew in and began to feed on a flimsy apple tree only 10 métrés away. It flew off five minutes later and was not seen again that day. I made it clear to Kate that this was an extremely rare bird in Britain and that it would cause considérable interest amongst the country's birdwatchers. I considered that she could expect to see more than 1,000 birders there the next day should we tell anyone and advised her to consult her neighbours before deciding. This she did and thankfully they were ail in favour; Kate even opened one of her fields as a carpark. There were 400 birders there next day at 7am and they were rewarded by the bird's appearance at 7.37am. It fed at a range of 30 feet in the apple tree for eight minutes before departing. It returned regularly during the day although nobody was sure where it went to in between visits. There were rumours that the bird was seen twice in Westleton village but this was not confirmed. From the apple damage examined on 2nd November it seems possible that the bird had been present since at least the day before. Sadly the bird was found dead on 7th December. No detailed description was taken, the bird being a textbook example. There are many photographs available, e.g. see Plate 6, to prove identification. D. R. Moore confirmed that this individuai belonged to the slender-billed race macrorhynchus which erupts from the East when an abundant cone crop of its food the Arolla Pine Pinus cembro is followed by a poor crop in the following year; DRM has experience of both races in the field.
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