Birds by Land and Sea 



greeted in approaching by the double-noted alarm 

 call of the male ringed plover. " Tuli ! tuli ! " he 

 calls, while you are still a long way off, and at this 

 signal the female bird, who has been sitting upon 

 her four eggs, slips from the nest and runs with 

 lowered head down to the water's edge. If you 

 have been quick enough to sweep with a glass the 

 shingle lying immediately above the high-water line 

 as marked by the drift, you may determine by some 

 object lying near it the spot from which she rose. 

 If not, as a general search would be hopeless, the 

 best plan is to hide, and keep the glass on the female 

 until she returns to the nest. This she will do very 

 cautiously, and with frequent runnings to and fro, 

 pausing to turn this way and that with repeated 

 bows and bobs, as if performing some ceremony. 

 The nest, a slight depression in the shingle, lined 

 with small stones and bits of shell, lies, as a rule, a 

 few feet above high-water mark, the stone-coloured 

 eggs, spotted with blackish-brown over pale grey 

 undermarkings, being almost indistinguishable from 

 the shingle. The nest may at times be found among 

 very coarse shingle, in which case it is lined with 

 fine seaweed or something similar. It would not be 

 correct to say, as is sometimes said, that the ringed 

 plover makes no nest. To one accustomed to pick 

 out such nests among the shingle, there is a very 

 characteristic formation about a ringed plover's nest, 

 by which he can at once distinguish it from a casual 

 depression in the shingle. It is fairly accurately 



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