SHORE-BIRDS 



be joined by goldfinches and lesser redpolls, the three 

 species hunting the alders for food in happy company. 

 The loud, clear call-note of the siskins, who are never 

 still a moment, suggests the coal-tit's call, and a band 

 of this titmouse may join forces with their party. Or a 

 pack of long-tailed titmice will keep them company for 

 awhile. Ten or twenty of the long- tails will flit in 

 quick succession through the trees, the one in front 

 luring on the next by its shrill note, showing that they 

 find the alder-holt an ideal place for their eternal game 

 of follow-my-leader. 



SHORE-BIRDS 



AMONG beautiful bird pictures that belong more 

 especially to Winter is that of a flock of 

 Sea Snipe dunlin drifting over beach, sands, or mud- 

 flats. The flock wheels as one, now showing 

 the dark upper plumage, then the white underparts; it 

 is like a smoky cloud that suddenly flashes with silver 

 light. The graceful little birds make a charming picture, 

 too, when feeding, as they pursue retreating waves to 

 dart on their prey, and run like silvery specks over the 

 grey mudflats, all chattering and eagerly dibbling, happy 

 in their element of ooze and sea- wrack. Being the most 

 abundant of our migratory waders they have come by 

 many local names churre and purre from the mournful 

 whistle, and stint, oxbird, sea-lark and sea-snipe, while 

 when they leave the coasts, to breed in the lonely moor- 

 land haunts of the plover, they are " plovers' pages." 



THE turnstone is almost the most abundant of our 

 smaller shore-birds, a bird famous for the awl-shaped 



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