332 SUMMER 



line all the winter. Early in August, and long before there 

 seems any need to quit England in our warmer seasons, this 

 group of shore-loving small birds is reinforced by a trickle 

 of other migrants, leisurely slipping along the shore-line 

 where it forms a convenient stage on their southern way. 

 Yellow wagtails join the grey and pied, and players on sea- 

 side golf links may notice that there are more wheatears 

 about than can be accounted for by the resources of the 

 immediate neighbourhood. All this is the beginning of the 

 autumn migration ; but that great annual event begins so 

 gradually, and from the human point of view so prematurely, 



COMMON PLOVER 



that many of the new movements which it brings about are 

 features not of autumn but of summer. 



Many kinds of gulls haunt the same flat shores as the 

 flocks of waders, and feed at low water on the same banks 

 of ooze and sand. They are increasing so rapidly that they 

 are not only colonising many new nesting-grounds, but are 

 developing fresh tastes and methods of hunting. Tricks 

 new to experienced observers have been noticed lately in 

 widely separated parts of the country. Herring-gulls and 

 black-headed gulls have been watched paddling with their 

 webbed feet in the shallow water at the edge of the tide, 

 and catching the food washed out of the mud. The trick 

 seems to have originated with the herring-gulls and to be 



