CHAPTER VI 



MAY ON THE MOORS 



May is a month of repose. It lacks that feverish excite- 

 ment which has characterised the two preceding" moons, 

 during which the whole bird-world has been on the move 

 — on long" sea-travel or short, on through-transits, or 

 merely local redistribution. True, there remain two 

 summer-migrants yet to arrive from afar (the nightjar 

 and landrail) ; but they are unimportant in the general 

 scope. In May the birds, far-travelled or otherwise, 

 have settled down, for two months, to the routine of 

 domestic cares and felicities. 



Throughout the Borders are many breeding - colonies 

 of the Black-headed Gulls, and the larger gulleries 

 present one of the most animated of moorland scenes. 

 Almost each large sheet of water has its colony ; while 

 many a remote moss-pool or nameless hill-lough boasts 

 its pair or two of this most graceful species. 



By May ist there is abundance of gulls' eggs. At a 

 lough on a moor I then rented, were 150 nests. Ten 

 years previously, there were but a dozen or so ; perhaps 

 our care and protection had tended towards that increase. 

 The nests, of heather and dead rush, crowd thickly 

 along the lough-side on the short heather and spongy 

 green sphagnum — others are outside on mossy islets. 



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