April 28

Posted by sydney on Apr 28th, 2009

Black-winged stilt
Black-winged stilt.

  • 1793: April 28, 1793 – Wall-flowers full of bloom, & very fine.  Nightingales in my fields.
  • 1792: April 28, 1792 – Planted in the mead-garden eleven rows of potatoes;  four of which were potatoes from Liverpool, sent to Dr Chandler by Mr Clarke.  Planted in the mead four rows of beans.
  • 1790: April 28, 1790 – Full moon. Total eclipse.
  • 1789: April 28, 1789 – Timothy the tortoise beings to eat dandelion.
  • 1787: April 28, 1787 – Set Gunnory, the Bantam hen, on nine of her own eggs.
  • 1784: April 28, 1784 – Grass-hopper lark whispers.
  • 1779: April 28, 1779 – Five long-legged plovers, charadrius himantopus, were shot at Frinsham-pond.  There were three brace in all.  These are the most rare of all British birds.  Their legs are marvellously long for the bulk of their bodies.  To be in proportion of weight for inches the legs of Flamingo should be more than 10 feet in length.
  • 1775: April 28, 1775 – Sun, sultry, fierce heat!  Midsummer evening.  The sun scorched øtil within an hour of setting.  Swfit appears at Manchester & Fyfield.  Apus, one single swift.  They usually arrive in pairs.  Parhelia, or odd halo round the sun.  Described since in Gent. mag.
  • 1774: April 28, 1774 – Began to cut a little orchard grass for the horses.  Some few beeches are in leaf.
  • 1772: April 28, 1772 – Drying & cold.  Black-caps abound.
  • 1769: April 28, 1769 – Some mackrels.

Notes:
The long-legged plovers were black-winged stilts, still extraordinarly rare bird in England, being native to the Mediterranean. White writes up this incident at great length in NHoS letter XLIX:

“Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain. From all these relations it plainly appears that these long-legged plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely visit our island; and when they do are wanderers and stragglers, and impelled to make so distant and northern an excursion from motives or accidents for which we are not able to account. “

Sammy the Titchwell Stilt frequented Norfolk from one of these unknowable motives.

The parheila, or sundog, is described several times over the few hundred years of the Gentleman’s Magazine, which often gave accounts of papers given to the various scientific societies. Here’s a mention in 1844.

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