6 Grey Plover 



touched something warm and tluffy, and there, deep in the golden 

 moss, so that the golden down was just on a level with the 

 tips of the moss, motionless and practically invisible to the eye, 

 crouched a nestling. My walking stick was actually touching a 

 second nestling, and the other two I found about twelve inches away 

 from it, but all by feeling for them — until I touched them with my 

 hand I never saii' one at all, though my eyes must have been often 

 within less than a foot. Two nestlings I took, and two I put back 

 again for the parents to bring up. 



The Grey Plover is a bird of the mud flats. I have never seen 

 one far away from a tidal estuary or some similar situation. In 

 winter, the plumage of these birds is eminently protective ; nearl}- 

 white underparts, and a chequered back, giving an effect of quiet 

 grey, and they are very difficult to see in the dull light of a winter's 

 day, as they stand on the grey mud. It is almost always their 

 very beautiful and characteristic cry which calls your attention 

 to them, and, guided by the cry, you ultimately distinguish the birds. 



But look at the same bird in summer. He stands out on the 

 same mud bank in his brilliant nuptial dress, so that no one can fail 

 to see him ; his jet black underparts, his big black eye, and splendid 

 white eye-streak, make him extremely conspicuous. I think that a 

 Grey Plover, in perfect summer dress, is the most remarkable and 

 the most beautiful of all our Waders. As we find them here in 

 summer, a small flock will perhaps show two or three nearly perfectly 

 dressed birds, all males ; others in mottled dress, mostly males ; 

 and others again showing very little change at all ; these latter are 

 mostly females. They seldom acquire anything like a perfect 

 dress, at any rate, in this country. But the late Mr. Seebohm, and 

 Mr. Harvie Brown found them on the Petchora tundras, in Siberia, 

 breeding, and in some cases were unable to distinguish the males 

 from the females by their plumage. They found, too, as many 

 naturalists have subsequently reported of other Waders, that the 

 work of incubation is undertaken quite as much b}^ the male as the 

 female {cf. Trevor-Battye, Pearson, Popham and others). 



The Grey Plover is peculiar in another point. The young of 

 the year — that is in their first plumage — very nearly resemble 

 immature Golden Plovers ; they have grey, mottled breasts, and 

 beautiful chequered, golden backs, strongly resembling Golden 

 Plover. I have myself shot Grey Plover in September, and thought 

 they were Golden, until I noticed their legs and their black axillaries. 



The axillaries of a Grey Plover, at any age, are black, of our 

 Golden Plover white. At the same time, the two birds are connected 

 through the Eastern Golden Plover, which has smoke-coloured 

 axillaries. The Golden Plover has no hind toe, while the Grey 

 Plover has a rudimentary one. 



Grey Plovers are remarkably easy to call ; the young birds will 

 always come to call, and their elders generally, unless they are in a 

 large party and seriously bent on migration. 



