THE DEE AN OCTOBER TIDE 53 



waders who find the companionship of rock hunters more 

 to their taste than the birds which haunt the sandy shore ; 

 there are usually some of these two species on the weed- 

 fringed rocks of Hilbre. The curlew sandpiper, a bird 

 with a long, slightly curved bill and conspicuous white 

 upper tail-coverts, was not present, nor was that dimin- 

 utive dunlin, the little stint; the majority of these two 

 species had no doubt passed in August or September. 

 A few often appear amongst the Dee little birds, but they 

 are never really common. 



Curlews, easily distinguished by their size and note from 

 the whimbrels, constantly passed in parties, then 1 long 

 curved bills outlined against the sky; on Middle Hilbre 

 they gathered until, from the Eye, three-quarters of a mile 

 away, it looked as if the grass was browsed by innumerable 

 tiny brown sheep. They left the Eye severely alone ; the 

 curlew's sight is too sharp. Not so the pies, for when the 

 sand-browned water lapped the red rocks below us they 

 began to settle, first a single bird, then a score, then 

 hundreds at a time. They saw us and were nervous, 

 but they clung, from habit, to this high-tide roost, and 

 though at times all rose at once and flew round the rock, 

 the scare soon abated and peace reigned once more. 

 Peace ? No, they were hardly peaceful, for as each fresh 

 party arrived it drove the first comers into the tide. 

 The reefs at the Red Rocks on the Cheshire shore were 

 one by one submerged, and party after party of pies and 

 godwits, which had used this rest so long as the tide 

 allowed, came swinging, with much conversation, across 

 the water. The godwit flies with the neck drawn back, 

 its bill held straight, but when these barking bar-tails 

 passed the slight uptilt of the beak showed clearly. The 

 bar-tailed godwits settled with the oyster-catchers, 

 swelling the uneasy crowd; they leapt out of the waves, 

 and with a flutter of wings dropped where the crowd was 



