62 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



The herring season was drawing to a close, but a few 

 gannets haunted the coast, wheeling high above the water 

 on narrow, black-tipped wing, then dropping headlong 

 with a half corkscrew dive to plunge on the gleaming prey 

 beneath. One day, close to the sea-wall, a red-throated 

 diver was swimming and taking lengthy under-water 

 excursions; it was on its way to northern waters, a winter 

 visitor to southern seas in no hurry to feel the call of spring. 

 Though still in winter dress its spotted back and slender 

 build, but especially its slightly uptilted bill, made 

 identification easy as it swam within stone-throw. 



In the Torquay gardens, ruddy with valerian, and gay 

 with wallflowers, forget-me-nots, and scillas, thrushes 

 were in full song, but the song thrush avails itself of any 

 bright winter day to get into form for the later months. 

 More unusual was the piping of the blackbird in early 

 February, and the cheery rattle of the abundant 

 chaffinches. The garrulous rook always has much to say 

 around the rookery long before early nesting has begun, 

 but in Devon the daws were more noticeable; round the 

 red beetled crag at Watcombe, where countless numbers 

 nest in safety, they wheeled in aerial mazes, crossing and 

 recrossing one another's path until the eye was dazzled 

 by the restless specks, and the air hummed with the 

 incessant sharp and almost querulous cries. Then on 

 curved wing, like some huge swift, a noble peregrine 

 swept over, and the sharp calls deepened into the long 

 corvine note of alarm; but the falcon had no wish for 

 daw flesh and passed on, and soon the sinister threat 

 had slipped the memory of those grey-pated heads. 



Invalids and convalescents, who have fled the treachery 

 of northern winters and springs, sit in the sunshine in the 

 sheltered Torquay rock garden. There, too, close by an 

 almond in full blossom on the first day of February, were 

 a couple of blackcaps, feeding contentedly on the ripe 



