MOORLAND BIRDS 61 



where, and the whitethroats are busy in the thorns and 

 roadside nettles, there is a sense of freedom and a kind of 

 natural adventure about a moorland expedition which makes 

 it even more attractive. The best way to approach the birds 

 of the moor is by following up one of the small streams 

 that come tumbling from the hills. In the shelter of the 

 slopes by such a stream, birches and alders and other wild 

 trees and bushes mount considerably higher than on the 

 bare slopes above. They thus tempt the birds of the low- 

 lands to push up into the heart of the moor ; and we pass in 

 gradual transition from the group of birds which we see 



'the dipper whizzes along the stream' 



among the fields and gardens of the village to the denizens 

 of the naked hills. The dipper whizzes along the stream, 

 following its windings or occasionally cutting across some 

 low-lying spit of land, and carrying mouthfuls of water- 

 insects to its young in the great mossy nest under some 

 overhanging cornice of rock. Dippers are sedentary birds, 

 and therefore early nesters ; and their first broods of young 

 are usually hatched by the third week in April, before most 

 of the birds of the open moor have done much more than 

 choose their nesting-place. But a sprinkling of dippers' 

 nests may be found still building in May ; and even in the 

 warm May weather when sycamores by the hill streams are 

 throwing off the scales from their bursting leaves, we can 



