At Home with Wild Nature 



The following morning I hired a boatman to row us 

 over to the gullery, and we soon beheld a wondrous 

 sight. Black-headed gulls and common terns, or sea 

 swallows, were there in countless and uncomputable 

 numbers. As we advanced white wings flashed in the 

 morning sunshine, north, south, east, west, overhead 

 and everywhere in vision-bewildering wealth; whilst 

 protesting cries over our intrusion filled the air in one 

 distracting clamour. Nests with fresh eggs in and nests 

 containing hard-sat clutches; young ones in down and 

 young ones in feather were everywhere, and care needed 

 to be taken not to tread upon something and crush its 

 life out in this vast nursery. Some of the sand-hills 

 were covered with gulls' nests and the tough marram 

 grass flattened down by the all-day pattering of webbed 

 feet. 



The common terns were more scattered than I had 

 found them on a previous visit, and the few pairs of 

 lesser terns that resort to this place every season were, 

 as usual, nesting not far above high- water mark. This 

 bird can be distinguished in the air by its smaller size 

 and the different sound of its sharp call note; on the 

 ground the white patch at the base of the upper 

 mandible is unmistakable evidence. 



Noisy oyster catchers were much in evidence, and at 

 one place I found three nests closer together than I had 

 ever known these birds to breed before. 



Right amongst the tallest and largest of the sand- 

 dunes we stumbled upon a little colony of Sandwich 

 terns the largest sea swallows to be found breeding in 



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