The Ptarmigan of the Waves 



lining of any sort; but I have, at times, seen nests charm- 

 ingly decorated with shells of many colours, so that they 

 stood out conspicuously against the sand. 



Although I say it almost regretfully — so much is there, 

 one might say, of charm of character in "the ptarmigan 

 of the waves " — I think that, of all shore-living birds, the 

 ringed plover must be one of the most careless — or can it 

 be, most foolish? — in the selection of a nesting site. In 

 support of this, I cannot do better than to give here an 

 account of a season's nesting of a pair of these birds. 



They arrived early in February at their summer home, 

 but it was not until the middle of May that the nesting- 

 ground was chosen. This was a strip of green grass, just 

 above the level of the shingle, and by the bank of a deep 

 pool of the burn. The nest, such as it was, was scraped 

 out, and three eggs laid. At the approach of an intruder, 

 the hen bird used to slip quietly off her nest, creep under 

 the fence and cross the burn unobserved, but at times she 

 might be heard calling nervously from the shingle on the 

 far side of the stream. The nest was perilously near the 

 reach of the spring tides, and on one or two occasions 

 had narrow escapes. But one Sunday morning at the very 

 end of May there came a heavy rainstorm out of the south- 

 west. Mist hid the hills, and blinding squalls of rain swept 

 the glen. Soon the burn commenced to rise rapidly until 

 it was swirling seawards with swollen, turbid waters. 



The moon was at the full at the time, so that the tides 

 were at their highest, and to-day, carried forward by the 

 south-westerly gale, the Atlantic waters filled the sea loch 

 far more rapidly than usual. So it came about that, 

 an hour before high tide, the nesting-ground of the "ptar- 

 migan of the waves " was inches deep in water, and on 

 the sea receding once more, the eggs were gone. Shortly 

 after high tide I visited the nesting-ground — too late, un- 

 fortunately, to save the eggs — and found the ringed plover 

 flying round her nesting-site with pathetic anxiety, seem- 



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