1911-1912.] The Birds of Nairn, 405 



paint-brush to daub those egg-shaped pebbles with blotches of 

 brown lichen, so that, without a microscopic inspection, only 

 the practised eye of a Tern can tell the ^g% from a stone. 

 Here, in the proper season, you will find the Terns in clouds, 

 the Common and Arctic species for the most part, though 

 trustworthy observers have recorded other species, amongst 

 them the Sandwich and the Eose Terns. The Culbin Sands 

 are too barren and inhospitable to maintain any copious bird- 

 life, but there are species which find a charm even in such 

 desolation as this. In the mind of the British ornithologist 

 the Culbin Sands are chiefly associated with Pallas Sand 

 Grouse ; but there are other species, the Lesser Black-backed 

 Gull amongst them, which find it possible to bring up a family 

 in this wilderness. Lochloy and the Cram Loch are the nest- 

 ing-place of various resident species of water-fowl, chiefly 

 Ducks and Eails, whilst in the winter season these lochs are 

 the playground of countless numbers of resident and visiting 

 birds — Mallard, Wigeon, Teal, Golden-eyes, Gulls of kinds, 

 Herons, Geese, Swans, and many others. If the boom of the 

 Bittern is ever heard again in this county, it is among the 

 sedges of Lochloy it may most confidently be expected. The 

 broad expanse of level sand, again, which extends at ebb-tide 

 from Nairn pier to the Old Bar, is a feeding-ground for in- 

 numerable waders and swimmers. Here you are always sure 

 to find large flocks of Gulls, chiefly the Common, the Herring, 

 and the Black-headed species, with which one or more pairs of 

 the Lesser Black-backs almost invariably associate themselves ; 

 but the best place for observing the ways of Gulls, out of the 

 breeding season, is the town of Nairn itself, where, in their 

 intercourse with the citizens, they have established themselves 

 on the intimate footing of barn-door fowls. An interesting 

 and characteristic feature of these extensive flats is the con- 

 gregating at the packing season of various families of waders, 

 of which the Curlew, Oyster-catcher, and Einged Plover are 

 perhaps the species most conspicuously in evidence. A dis- 

 tinguished bird of this area is that most beautiful of the Duck 

 tribe, the Sheldrake, which feeds at ebb-tide on the wide 

 stretches of tidal sands and nests in the dry rabbit-burrows 

 along the edge of the fir-wood which borders the shore. It is 

 a pretty sight in June to watch a pair of these birds as they 



