168 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



" ghylls " or " doughs " to whose rocky sides clings 

 a fringe of birch or rowan, the red berries of the latter 

 being as attractive to them as to their cousins the 

 mistle-thrushes. Below the edge of the moor the 

 Twites or Mountain Linnets flock to the crofter's 

 weedy patch of oat stubble, now gay with charlock 

 and corn-marigold. A single plaintive call from a 

 neighbouring fallow draws attention to a Golden 

 Plover ; as it runs to take wing a whole flock of its 

 fellows, previously unseen, starts up to bear it company. 

 The Green Woodpecker often wanders out into the 

 open, miles away from trees, in search of ants' nests 

 upon the warm moorland slopes. Of small birds the 

 Meadow Pipit and Wheatear are perhaps most charac- 

 teristic of the high sheep-walks and mountain moor- 

 lands. Every rocky " kopje" has its pair of wheatears. 

 They delight in the tumbled blocks of millstone 

 grit which overlook the Derbyshire moors, or in such 

 a craggy citadel as that which forms the summit of 

 Glyder Fach, where thirty-foot slabs, tossed at random, 

 suggest a dozen ruined Stonehenges. Toilsome is 

 the pull up, but, the cairn once gained, we breathe 

 enchanted air, serene and fair, while evening shafts 

 of light stream from Tryfan's crest and the mountains, 

 of a deep neutral grey, float in a setting of rosy haze. 

 As we scramble, we disturb a family party of Ravens. 

 With rapid flights to ledge and brow, excited croaks 

 and growling bark, the old birds muster and draw 



