II 



WILD BIRD LIFE IN THE SEVERN 

 ESTUARY 



ii 



aiR boat is on the flood tide with the wind 

 ehind us. There are few places in the 

 rorld where the tides rise higher or advance 

 more rapidly than in this estuary where the impulse 

 from the Atlantic received in a mouth fifty miles 

 wide is gradually compressed between long narrow- 

 ing shores as it ascends inland. The leagues of 

 mud flats, impassable by human foot, which at low 

 water stretch in all directions on the Somerset 

 coast, are the safe retreat and feeding grounds of 

 great multitudes of wading seafowl. Yet these 

 are scarcely more of a natural sanctuary for one 

 class of birds than are the wide ranges of the marsh 

 country beyond them for another country all 

 reclaimed from the sea and at many points still 

 below its level. In this flat land the tidal waters 

 flood the surface-leads and river mouths far inland. 

 A few hours ago our boat fell seaward on a slight 

 river at the bottom of a trough, a ribbon of water 

 with the blue sky above and the sloping banks of 

 mud ascending to the skyline from either side. 



18 



