HIGHLAND HAUNTS OF EAGLES 181 



hundred feet in height, and its approach necessitates 

 a rope descent, easily accomplished. Most nests, 

 however, can be reached without tackle, and the 

 reason, no doubt, that such simple places are chosen 

 is that, in the main, perpendicular precipices offer 

 few, if any, sites suitable for the immense struc- 

 ture. Yet, for all their size, some eyries, especially 

 those built on sunken ledges, are difficult to see, 

 even if you stand well away from the base of the 

 bastion. 



Later in the day we hunt successfully several 

 smallish plantings of sapling firs and birches for 

 a Woodcock's nest, led into so doing by having 

 watched the previous evening a male ' * roding ' 

 above them. With leisurely, flapping flight he flies 

 dow^n the glades and over and around the woods, 

 serenading his mate with a note which, starting 

 with a hoarse croak repeated several times, finishes 

 lamely with a curiously weak, squeaky chirp, 

 thus : cork-cork-cork-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep. 

 After an hour's search my friend cleverly spots a 

 Woodcock sitting on its nest right at the base of 

 a small sapling fir growing in a tiny clearing in 

 a spinney. Round it grows no vegetation ; merely 

 dead leaves carpet the soil, in which a scrape has 

 first been prepared for the nest, which is loosely 

 though plentifully made of withered oak (how fond 

 Woodcocks are of oak leaves for their nests !) and 

 birch leaves, in addition to some cotton-grass in 

 the foundation. It measures 7 in. across by 2^ in. 



