142 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



lover must delight in getting acquainted. Sup- 

 pose you steal into the rushes along the shore- 

 line, part them ever so little, and peer through 

 for a moment. There sleep — but always with 

 eyes and ears wide open — mallards, pintails, 

 spoonbills, blue-winged and green-winged teal, 

 and gadwalls, with possibly a few eanvasbacks 

 or blue bills close at hand in the shallows — the 

 open water ducks never quite make up their 

 minds to come ashore. " Puddling " in the 

 warm water all around the bar are the waders 

 — ^lesser yellowlegs, big godwits or willets, and 

 any one of a dozen other smaller species, from 

 the midget least sandpiper to the black-bellied 

 plover. 



The plover and snipe members of the gather- 

 ing are mostly busy ; they feed their plump little 

 bodies by day and rest at night, whereas the 

 ducks do the reverse. Out at the end of the bar 

 in an unfrequented pool stands the sentinel of 

 the assembly, on guard — a great blue heron. 

 Silent, morose, uncanny in his stolid immobility 

 and eery in the snakey movements of his rep- 

 tilian neck and head, he poses by himself. For 

 tittering yellowlegs, noisy willet, and gabbling 

 ducks he apparently regards with contempt. 



