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Miss Innis Dorrien-Smith



behaving in a most odd way, after the manner of birds, to take off

one’s attention from their precious children.


Amongst other commoner waders on these shores are the

redshanks. They are here all the year round, except just in the

breeding season. The first ones arrive about the end of July and

they are usually in knots of four or five; their loud calling note is

quite unmistakable, and a delightful wild cry it is. They vary their

haunts from the sands and rocks across the sand dunes to the fresh

water pool. I have searched up the Fjords in Norway for their

nests in the long grass and in the marshy flats and very difficult

they are to find, and only by watching with patience is it possible

at all.


The common sandpiper or summer snipe is their companion

in the breeding season on the edges of the rivers that come rushing

down to the Fjords. Their first note is usually heard in these

islands about August, hut some years I have heard them quite

early in July, and late in May I believe they sometimes nest in

Cornwall. They are not usually seen here in the winter months.

A delightful way of observing the above birds is when bathing in

the summer. I have approached within a few yards of sanderlings

and dunlins which have just arrived from their nesting-places,

usually far away in the north, and seem entirely engrossed in

hunting for their food in the wet sand; they dig in their bills, then

run a yard or so as if there was no time to be lost and in go their

bills again, and so the time flies till the tide rises and covers their

feeding ground, when there is nothing left for them but to plume

themselves on the rocks or fly to the marshy ground inland.

Usually the first heavy rain in August brings in quantities of these

little waders and also in the spring migrations they can be seen

racing along the wet sands.


Among the lesser common waders come the ruff and reeve,

usually seen at the time of migration, and bar-tailed godwits looking

for their food far out on the stretches of sand at low water or

round the fresh water pools.


Green sandpipers are only occasional visitors, but are quite

unmistakable with their very dark backs and white beneath.

Greenshanks are seen usually in solitary specimens with the com-



