CHAPTER XXIX 

 SPRING AND AUTUMN BY THE SHORE 



Signs of spring- The ring-plover Wheatears Arrival of nightingales 

 A strange resting-place Dunlin Far migrants Sandpipers and 

 their kinsfolk Turnstones The grey plover A day of perfection 

 Early autumn Grey phalaropes Shadows and reflections Small 

 shore birds Curlew-sandpiper Mallards The black tern. 



SPRING is upon the shore undoubtedly. You 

 may tell it by a score of signs. Yonder elegant 

 little ring-plover, running with dazzling feet into the 

 remnants of the last wavelet that washed the smooth, 

 tawny sand, displays it in the shining splendour 

 of his breeding apparel. His grey-brown upper 

 plumage, his neck-rings and head-markings, spotless 

 under parts, orange feet and bill, both black-tipped, 

 are all wonderfully perfect immaculate. Just now he 

 is restless, not caring to stay long upon the sands. 

 His wife is nesting away yonder among the wide, 

 barren stretch of sand and shingle, and he is off and 

 away to join her. Few birds manage to conceal their 

 eggs more cleverly from prying eyes than these little 

 plovers, the drab, black-speckled colouring harmonising 

 perfectly with the pebbles among which they are laid. 

 In the eastern counties, where these birds nest often 

 among the warrens by the shore, the ring-plover is 

 known as the stone-hatch, manifestly for the reason 

 that the hollow in which the eggs are laid is paved 

 with small pebbles. 



283 



