OYSTERCATCHER OR SEAPIE 395 



A decided preference is shown for an open situation, but 

 occasional departures have been recorded. A correspondent of 

 the Field stated that in the west of England he often found them 

 nesting among bracken, while one nest was concealed in a thicket 

 of grass and brambles. 1 Mr. Seton P. Gordon found a nest " in the 

 middle of a larch wood on a river island, and the oystercatcher looked 

 strangely out of place as she got off her eggs and ran rapidly through 

 the wood." 2 As a rule the nesting-grounds are quite near water, salt 

 or fresh, but occasionally at a considerable distance from it. 



The birds repair to the breeding-grounds from March to April, 

 according to the locality. Mr. Gordon has seen them migrating in 

 pairs up the rivers in Scotland as early as March 4th, and he states 

 that however bad the weather may be they do not return to the coast, 

 but remain on through severe frost and snow, when many of them 

 may be found dead on the river banks. 3 A pair, however, which each 

 nesting season visited a gravel island in a river in Perthshire, which 

 was watched for several years, generally arrived about April 8th, the 

 male preceding the female by a few days. There was of course no 

 certainty that they were the same individuals year after year ; possibly 

 not, as the observations extended over many years. The island was 

 always inhabited by one pair but no more. Other birds came to the 

 island at uncertain times during the nesting season, but their visits 

 seldom lasted more than ten to fifteen minutes, during which time 

 the birds kept up a strange wild musical noise as they chased each 

 other about. The strangers would then depart, and no more would be 

 seen for weeks. 4 



The usual call-note of the oystercatcher is loud and shrill, mono- 

 syllabic, and often repeated. A dozen or so birds in a small flock, 

 flying with rapid wing-beats low down along the edge of the surf, 

 maintain a continuous utterance of this note, which heralds the 

 approach of the birds, swells in volume as they draw near, and then 



1 Field, 1901, vol. xcvii. p. 797. * Birds of Loch and Mountain, p. 102. 



3 Ibid., p. 97. Field, 1890, vol. Ixxvi. p. 214. 



VOL. in. SE 



