The Land of the Hills and the Glens 



birds were lying around, yet kittiwakes and cormorants 

 brooded on their nests on the rocks, paying no heed to the 

 agitated peregrines soaring overhead. 



During the first week of June Arctic skuas still fre- 

 quented a stretch of shore some distance from their breed- 

 ing-ground, the continuous north wind probably retarding 

 their northward migration. On one occasion I saw a tern 

 being hotly pursued by a skua, while the tern's mate was 

 in its turn attacking the aggressor. As late as June 8 I saw 

 a flock of dunlin in full breeding plumage frequenting the 

 shore, and about this time noticed a small island crowded 

 with eider drakes. These birds are not by any means model 

 husbands, for they leave their wives when the latter begin 

 to sit, and take no further interest in their families. 



At the beginning of the second week in June the young 

 of numerous tree pipits and whinchats were hatched out, and 

 at this time most of the oyster catchers had chicks, betray- 

 ing great anxiety when their nesting-haunts were approached. 

 Ptarmigan are few and far between in the Western High- 

 lands, and it is not by any means easy to locate one of 

 their nests. On June 14, the first warm day of the month, 

 I was on the high ground, and at a height of a little over 

 two thousand feet a cock ptarmigan rose. A few yards from 

 where he had been sitting the hen bird rose from her nest, 

 containing four strikingly beautiful eggs of a rich red colour. 

 The eggs were freshly laid, and judging from the smallness 

 of their number and the late date — ptarmigan usually begin 

 to brood during the third week in May — I think this was a 

 second laying. Rather later in the day, just over the hill- 

 top and sheltered from the wind, I watched a ptarmigan with 

 a fine brood of eight chicks only a few days old. On becom- 

 ing suspicious the old bird called to her family with a 

 strong, high-pitched cry, when they immediately ran to 

 her, scrambling ludicrously over the stones and following 

 her at top speed over the brow of the hill. 



A surprisingly large number of gulls were to be seen 



T94 



