106 BIRD-LIFE IN WEST-HIGHLAND PARISH 



great tit, the coal tit, and the blue tit are among 

 our commonest birds, the last being here the 

 least plentiful. He or she who wishes to do a 

 kindly act, and at the same time provide an 

 unfailing source of pleasure and amusement, can 

 do so by hanging a half-picked bone, or preferably 

 a lump of suet, by a short string to some con- 

 venient branch or projection. To the tits these 

 are a great attraction, and their quaint postures 

 as they cling upside down to the food, or slide 

 down, the string clasped in their little claws, 

 never cease to interest and amuse. A few well- 

 designed and properly placed nesting-boxes will 

 serve to attract and keep them. 



Another tit, the marsh tit, has only once been 

 recorded in this area as a stray autumn visitor. 

 The water-ouzel frequents the hill burns and the 

 loch side, and, like the robin, may be heard 

 singing his cheerful little song in the ice and 

 snow of winter. One pair chose an extraordinary 

 nesting-place, building on the lower flange of an 

 iron girder forming part of a culvert carrying 

 the railway over a small burn. Here they sat 

 and hatched their eggs within two feet of the 

 rail on the upper side of the bridge over which 

 a dozen noisy trains were passing daily. One 

 would have thought that the vibration alone, to 

 say nothing of the noise, would have deterred 



