A DAY ON THE BAY SHORE 



white-winged scoters that splash into the water just off a rocky 

 point where mussels are plenty. A little company of Forster's 

 terns flit about just on the edge of shallow water, with their 

 airy grace of movement, their long, slender wings and tail, 

 their silver-blue and snowy-white plumage, and their lightsome 

 plunges into the water after fish. 



There is something strangely impressive about the silence of 

 these shore birds. We are so accustomed to associate song, or 

 at least the sweet calls of our woodland vocalists, with bird 

 life, that to see the great stretches of exposed shore crowded 

 with birds that are either silent or uttering strange cries, croaks 

 or quacks is a new experience to many of us. The gulls are 

 usually silent and specter-like as they fly on graceful wing, 

 with their heads turning now this way, and agam that, in their 

 consteuit search for food; but when once these beautiful scav- 

 engers have found a supply of food drifting on the tide they 

 are the noisiest birds of the bay shore. They are voracious 

 feeders, pouncing with great avidity upon any floating thing 

 which is eatable, and uttering their loud cries until sometimes 

 a vast throng congregates about the spot, with a tumultuous 

 fluttering of wings. 



At length the tide is so high that the mud-flats are no longer 

 visible, and the shore birds have all disappeared. A Pacific 

 black-throated loon swims gracefully over the choppy sea and 

 suddenly slides down out of sight in the water. We look 

 across the bay toward the Golden Gate and see the sails of 

 outgoing and incoming vessels. The long line of San Fran- 

 cisco is visible through the mist, and we see a ferry crossing 

 from the Oakland side. What a host of birds haunt the 

 shores of this great bay, each with habits and life of its own, 



[55] 



