120 BIRDS OF LOCH AND MOUNTAIN 



panions besides the Gulls being the beautiful 

 Ptarmigan and the lordly Golden Eagle, with 

 an occasional absurdly confiding Dotterel. The 

 view from these mountains is unsurpassed, and 

 on a clear day, from the " Loch of the Birds," 

 the river Dee here only a tiny stream is seen 

 dashing down Brae Riach's giant precipice, a dis- 

 tance of perhaps twenty miles away. 



I think that the Common Gull and the Golden 

 Eagle are on quite friendly terms with each other, 

 and even if an Eagle should take it into his head to 

 try to catch a Gull he would have a very difficult 

 task, as the Gull's soaring powers are nearly 

 if not quite as good as his own. 



The male Gull is very pugnacious and will 

 attack anything that ventures near his nesting site. 

 At the hands of a colony of these birds a fox has 

 a very bad time, and, on one occasion I watched, 

 from a distance of over a mile, a Goosander swimming 

 and diving in the vicinity of a stone on which a 

 Gull was perched. I felt pretty sure that the latter 

 would not stand this long, and sure enough, when 

 the Goosander boldly swam close past the stone, 

 the Gull swooped at him in a fury and effectually 

 banished him from that part of the loch. 



The young Gulls are hatched out by the latter 

 part of June, but some do not leave the shell till 

 July. They take to the Water almost immediately 

 they are hatched, and are very carefully looked 

 after by the parent birds. While the intruder is 

 yet a very long way off, one Gull is seen to leave the 

 loch and make for him with strong wing-beats. 

 Then another rises, and another, and the air is filled 

 with wailing cries as the Gulls rise in a body. 



One day last July I visited the loch to try to 



