the Surf Scoter 



sick or oil-soaked birds floundering about the beaches hereabouts, I was 

 slow to arrive at the conclusion that beach-foraging is a normal act for 

 Scoters. The suspicion of illness or weakness in one of these birds, even 

 a perfectly healthy one, seen inside the surf line, is occasioned by the 

 fact that he is invariably too heavy for his feet. These he uses, if at all, 

 with great difficulty, and he waddles or hitches about most awkwardly. 

 Yet this is perfectly natural. Do we not recall our own feeling of exces- 

 sive weight upon emerging from an ocean dip? We are elephants, and 

 they have given us only toothpicks for support. Certainly the Scoter 

 takes most of his terrestrial experience squatting. In this way alone is 

 he able to combat the powerful reflex of the retreating wave and be 

 prepared to endure the shock of its successor. Five birds that I am 

 watching have been back and forth through the surf repeatedly, almost 

 invariably swimming for it when flight would appear easier. A bird 

 breasts the curling wave and rises with nice calculation, or if he sees 

 that he is too late, he ducks nimbly so as to get the minimum shock. 

 Inside the breaker line he allows the water to sweep him up as far as it 

 will, endeavoring only to keep headed ashore by dint of spraddling his 

 legs. If suspicious of strangers, he allows the refluent wave also to sweep 

 him back. Once fairly ashore, the Scoters dig valiantly in the saturated 

 sands for concealed dainties. One I watched scooped rapidly with his 

 shovel bill, like an Indian after clams, until his labors were rewarded, 

 apparently by a worm. So far as I know these are the only birds capable 

 of submitting to the actual pounding of the breakers, or willing to do so. 



MM! 



Taken in Santa Barbara 



Photo by the Author 



SKIRMISHING AT THE TIDE LINE 



1839 



