The Land of the Hills and the Glens 



water, calling angrily at us in its helplessness as we passed. 

 One rarely sees a solan mobbed by other birds, but recently 

 I noticed one whose flight took it past a stretch of coast 

 marked out by a greater black-backed gull as its own domain. 

 The gull pursued the solan a considerable distance out to sea, 

 and when it gave up the chase the solan alighted on the water 

 as though exhausted. 



Towards the end of the month large flocks of curlew had 

 arrived from the north, and while at sea on the 25th a 

 swift passed us going south, but not till next month does the 

 full tide of bird migration set in southwards. 



3. AUGUST 



DURING August, wild life is not so evident as in the 

 preceding months. Most of the birds have reared their 

 broods ere now, and are in process of moulting, so that they 

 avoid human observation as much as possible. 



One of the earliest birds to reach us from the far north is 

 the purple sandpiper. Unlike most of the waders which 

 appear in flocks, this sandpiper is usually seen singly or in 

 pairs, and is usually a bird of silence, uttering no alarm note 

 as it flies stealthily away. Dunlin and golden plover arrive in 

 their hundreds along the mud flats, and curlew from the 

 north now take the place of the home nesting birds, which 

 in their turn move on southwards. The common gulls, 

 which nest so plentifully on the grassy islands of the West 

 Coast, disperse from their nesting sites, and they, too, pass 

 south. The common sandpiper is one of the first of 

 the summer migrants to depart, for it remains on only till 

 its young are strong on the wing. During, the first week 

 in August these birds leave quietly and unobtrusively one 

 does not see their going, but one day their graceful forms 

 are no longer to be seen flitting across the water, and it 

 is realised that they have started off on their long journey. 



In the opening week of the month oyster catchers in some 

 198 



