CHAPTER XXXVI 



THE FLIGHTING OF THE WIDGEON 



DURING the months of winter large numbers of widgeon 

 visit our coasts, moving swiftly down to us from the 

 sparsely-peopled regions of the Far North, where they 

 enjoy, during the nesting season, the pale light of the mid- 

 night sun, and where their enemies are restricted, maybe, 

 to the dashing Iceland falcon or the stealthy prowling steppe 

 fox. The coming of winter is swift in these northern regions, 

 and before the advent of October the long Arctic night is 

 drawing in and the frost is gripping firmly the waters of the 

 lakes and even of the sea itself. It is then that the widgeon set 

 out on their long southward flight, and, journeying in great 

 flocks before the northerly winds, arrive on our shores with 

 the approach of winter. But though at first these travellers 

 are friendly and confiding, the ceaseless persecution of the 

 shore-gunner causes them, in a short space of time, to become 

 wary and ever on the alert, so that they spend the hours of 

 daylight on the open sea, venturing to the mud-flats to feed 

 only when darkness is settling on the waters to hide them 

 from their enemies. Few localities in Great Britain are more 

 suited for the requirements of shore birds than the great 

 mud-flats of Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland, 

 and it is here that the flighting of the widgeon is, for the 

 naturalist as well as the shore-gunner, a thing of peculiar 

 interest. 



Dawn had not yet tinged the eastern horizon one January 

 morning as we left the castle of Lindisfarne and made our 

 way to the water's edge, where a boat was ready to cross 

 with us to the opposite shore of the estuary mouth. The 



169 



