MOORLAND BIRDS IN AUGUST 



175 



burns with their merry song - . The average date for 

 their withdrawal is August 25th, after giving us just four 

 months of their delightful company. 1 



The curlew and golden plover have also gone, though 

 it is true that a few belated individuals still linger. In wet 

 seasons, curlews and plovers continue frequenting the lower- 

 lying pastures and boggy haughs, as well as the broad 

 gravel-beds on riversides. One sometimes kills a late- 

 hatched young curlew on the upper moors — often to 





Curlew (Alarmed) 



a point-shot, for they lie close in heather or rush ; and, 

 occasionally, after a "rode" of perhaps 50 or 100 yards 

 before the dogs. It naturally takes one by surprise when 

 a curlew springs before one under such circumstances. 

 The golden plovers too — that is, the vast majority of 

 them — have departed for the south long before the 



1 The above date applies to birds which have spent the summer here. 

 Later in this book will be found records of sandpipers still occurring up to 

 the very middle of September. These are, beyond all doubt, birds in 

 through-transit from further north. 



