4 THEY A U"D UD BION B Uli bei 
next morning we transported our equipment to our base camp three miles 
out of Churchill. We secured a small one room shanty used by natives for 
putting up ice. It was hard for us to understand at first why it was neces- 
sary to put up ice in a climate such as theirs, but we soon learned that it 
was not for refrigeration, but rather to melt in the winter so they would 
have drinking water. 
Having established camp, we proceeded to look over the country. It 
isn’t a pretty place, being nothing more than a vast tundra, interspersed 
with small shallow lakes which freeze to the bottom during the winter. The 
ground seems not to have soil, it being just a thick layer of moss with a 
little grass in the marshy places. Beneath about three feet of this moss 
there is a layer of ice which never melts. An ice box can be made anywhere 
by just digging down a few feet. There are a few scrub spruces around the 
lakes. These trees have limbs only on the south side, and after facing the 
wind there a few times it is easy to understand why. 
The most abundant species of shore bird we found in the Churchill 
territory was the Hudsonian curlew. These nested in profusion on the 
tundra, their nests being just a hollow in the moss, usually situated on a 
hummock in fairly marshy sections. Eggs of this species, as with nearly 
all the shore birds for that matter, blend so perfectly with the surroundings 
as to make them impossible to see unless one knows the exact location. 
Likewise, this bird cannot be flushed from the nest, so the only practical 
method of locating their nests is to watch a pair of birds until they lead 
one to it. A nesting pair is easily found since they fly out to meet an 
intruder and scream until he vanishes. The tundra is dotted with small 
clumps of spruce which make perfect natural blinds and the birds return 
to the nests very shortly, making the locating of them a comparatively easy 
task. In a fairly good sized section of tundra a dozen or more pairs may be 
nesting. ves 
The stilt sandpiper has been considered the most common shore bird at 
Churchill by some; however, our observations did not show this to be true 
during the 1940 season. Frankly, we were never able to figure out the most 
satisfactory way to locate their nests. Certain individuals would sit very 
close and one permitted me to photograph her on the nest at not over two 
feet. Others we found by watching through binoculars from concealment. 
These individuals apparently left the nest in advance of our approach and 
usually showed no sign that they were nesting. We watched a number of 
birds that did not return to their nests while we watched them. This was 
not true of the curlews. We were able to find the nest of every curlew which 
we watched from concealment. 
The most common duck was the old-squaw. These birds nested often on 
the islands or at the edge of the shallow tundra lakes, their nests being a 
hollow in the moss, covered over when the birds were away with the black 
down from their breasts. This made the nests most inconspicuous. 
We found four nests of Bonaparte’s gull, although there were a great 
many more of the birds in the section. We made a thorough search and 
probably did not miss any nests since the suitable locations were not 
plentiful and the birds plainly showed by their actions when they were 
