SOME ROCK-HAUNTING BIRDS 



Heermann gull among the rest, — when I was 

 startled by a set of loud, clear, piercing whistles, 

 and the next instant saw four red-billed birds 

 skimming over the water between me and the 

 rocks. Another minute, and they had alighted 

 on one of the smaller of them, and I was repeat- 

 ing to myself, in a kind of ecstasy, "Oyster- 

 catchers, black oyster-catchers!" Their stout 

 bright bills and their general figure and attitudes, 

 so like those of the Eastern bird, which I had 

 seen a few years before at St. Augustine, 

 Florida, could belong to nothing else. 



The feet and legs were of a lively flesh color, 

 the head and neck black, or nearly so, while the 

 wings, the most beautiful part of them (they 

 were in splendid light) were of the warmest, 

 silkiest, shining brown, verging upon chestnut ; 

 as lovely a shade, I thought, as I had ever seen 

 worn by any bird. 



For a long time I kept my glass trained upon 

 them, now prying barnacles, or things of that 

 nature, off the rock, — sometimes putting them- 

 selves into odd positions in order to secure the 

 needed purchase upon the shell, — now leaping 

 into the air as a wave broke over their standing- 

 place, and now taking a short flight, always with 

 quickly repeated whistles of the loudest and 

 clearest sort. 



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