At Home with Wild Nature 



mossy boulder, where she had stood for some time 

 critically inspecting my hide-up, on to the bank, and 

 zigzagging to and fro finally thrust her bill through 

 the dead bracken over her nest and made a considered 

 scrutiny of the lens. This was the only time she re- 

 frained from holding a voluble conversation with her- 

 self. As the eye of the camera neither winked nor 

 blinked she came right on to her nest, and was recorded 

 sitting there. Even after she had become reconciled to 

 the presence of my hiding-tent and quite settled down 

 to her task of incubation she kept on calling, although 

 no member of her species ever came near or answered 

 her. 



A few score yards farther down-stream I found two 

 more sandpipers' nests, one in a steep bank and the 

 other in a tuft of rushes growing on a sandbank thrown 

 up at a point where once the river flowed. 



On the limited acres of " bird flat " which is really 

 an opening at the foot of a narrow valley we found half 

 a dozen nests of the " yallo wagster " the dalesman's 

 name for the yellow wagtail and a similar number 

 belonging to the meadow pipit. There were lapwings, 

 redshanks, snipes, skylarks and wheatears besides, to 

 say nothing of sand martins and an occasional kingfisher 

 flashing like a meteor up or down stream. 



In order to show the well-marked individuality to be 

 met with amongst birds of the same species I will relate 

 my experiences, at this place. I tried my photographic 

 hand on the owners of two yellow wagtails' nests built 

 within a stone's throw of each other. One was under 



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