BREYDON IN SPRINGTIME 105 



Redshanks are merry enough on the flats in May, whither 

 they repair in the intervals of their household duties, to feed 

 and gossip with old friends who come later southward. They 

 will muster up in larger numbers in August, when young and 

 old gather together in quite respectable flocks I have seen 

 a hundred in a bunch from the Bure and Waveney marshes. 



The extension of the close season until September is a 

 real boon to this species, which formerly was sadly decimated 

 by shooters who found it a ready target, and easily decoyed 

 within gunshot by the most imperfect mimicry of its call- 

 notes. Its habit of sitting on a rail and clicking is familiar 

 to most people who know its haunts. It has an odd way, 

 too, of lifting its wings abovehead to their greatest extent, as 

 if proud of the length of its primaries ! The redshank 

 persistently feeds in a chosen spot until the tide fairly lifts it 

 off its legs ; and so daintily clean is it that it will stop 

 feeding to put in position a refractory feather, or wash the 

 tiniest speck of mud from its plumage. Its cousin the 

 greenshank, a far noisier bird, comes in ones and twos in 

 May, and attracts attention by its restless and impulsive 

 manners ; and whilst the redshank flies in a well-sustained 

 and circular fashion, "greenie" darts along with jerky 

 suddenness, hesitates a-wing, in dragon-fly fashion, and goes 

 ahead again, showing more white behind than you suspected 

 it was wearing. 



One never tires of watching the peculiarities of individual 

 species ; and snugly ensconced in the well of our punt, under 

 the lee of the rugged edge of a tide-worn flat, the patient 

 watcher gets glimpses of ways and manners such as the 

 restless never dream of. Sometimes these hunting parties 

 will mix together right good-naturedly, ' one touch of 

 nature' supper hunting making the bird-world kin. A 

 party of dunlins, resplendent in coats of variegated brown 

 and black, with vests of jetty hue, come nimbly running 

 along, "pick ! pick / pick /" as they move, snatching at Coro- 

 phium and mudworm, delving deeply for those that hide. 

 Trilly piping the ringed plovers join them, running and 

 picking picking and running ; among them may be odd 

 Kentish plovers and little stints ; while you may hear, too, 

 the "wick ! wick !" of the sanderling, which you may recog- 

 nise most easily by its speckled gorget. By some common 



