330 SUMMER 



as the edge of a farmyard pond, as the hours pass in the 

 sunshine, and the light breeze carries their shed feathers into 

 a little drift on the leeward shore. Soon the tide returns, 

 and the scene that seemed so quiet and stable swiftly 

 vanishes. A wave licks over the sands, and washes out half 

 the shores of the pool with a single surge. The gulls take 

 wing, and the shelduck turn tail to the tide, and float away 

 together over the site of their vanished resting-place. 



Redshank breed among the sea-marshes, and become 

 more numerous though less anxiously noisy from midsummer 



SHELDUCK 



onwards ; and terns and black-headed gulls multiply in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of their scattered colonies. 

 Little is seen of the families bred by the ringed plovers on 

 flat shingly beaches; these elusive little birds seem no 

 more numerous when they have done nesting than before. 

 But there is a gradual access of life sometimes even as 

 early as the end of June when the broods from inland 

 begin to reach the shore. By August enormous flocks of 

 common plover collect at the mouth of estuaries near 

 some district where they breed in abundance. The plover 

 flocks round the Solway sands in late summer are only ex- 

 ceeded in size by the great packs seen in hard winter weather. 



