30 WILD BIRDS 



It is worth scrambling about many hours in a 

 place like this, and losing one's bearings completely, 

 as I did, to have a near view of such game. Two 

 out of our three harriers are hardly more English 

 birds to-day than the kite, and for this third 

 Montagu's we may search summer after summer 

 in vain. The harriers, if they find mates and stay 

 to nest on the moor, will find abundant prey in 

 pipits and small ground game on swamp and dry 

 spot alike. 



Peewits are twirling and tumbling over the 

 heath all day and half the night. I flushed mallard 

 and snipe on the greener and moister parts of this 

 glorious wild common ; whilst the noisy redshanks 

 were on the wing in one corner. Some people think 

 a redshank's eccentric wing play is a device to draw 

 the intruder from its nest. It may be, but each 

 flight sometimes finishes with a wild, erratic figure 

 in the distance, hundreds of yards from the intruder ; 

 and then the redshank seems to forget all save its 

 spring ecstasy. It will end one of these flights with 

 a high speed, glancing or rolling from side to side, 

 and taking a course irregular as that of a streak of 

 fork lightning. 



This redshank action is just like the action of the 

 ringed plover across the stony warren under the 

 headland the very passion of wings in it ! It 

 is common to several of these birds of the marsh and 

 mud-flat ; and so, too, is the mournful protest 

 around and around the intruder, and the slower, 

 jerky flights overhead. Whilst the redshank is 



