British Sea Birds. Charles Dixon

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СКАЧАТЬ of Limicoline birds breed on the British coast-line. Not a single Sandpiper nor Snipe does so, and but two or three Plovers, as we have already seen. So far as summer is concerned, these wading birds cannot be regarded as a very remarkable feature of avine life upon the coast; and it is, doubtless, because they are so little known to the majority of seaside visitors, that they appeal so much less to the popular mind than the more ubiquitous Gulls. But from September onwards to the following spring, Plovers and Sandpipers are the most prominent characteristics of all the more low-lying coasts. We will briefly glance at those species that not only frequent such situations regularly every season, but occur in sufficient numbers to place them beyond the category of abnormal visitors, or storm-driven wanderers from their natural haunts.

GOLDEN PLOVER

      This species, the Charadrius pluvialis of ornithologists, is, from the regularity of its appearance and its great abundance, known almost everywhere as the Plover of the coast. It derives its trivial name from the profusion of golden yellow drop-like spots which adorn its upper plumage, and may always be distinguished from allied species by its barred tail feathers and white axillaries. Large flights of Golden Plover begin to appear on our low-lying coasts in September, and through October and November the number steadily increases. Many of these birds simply pass along our shore-line to haunts in the Mediterranean basin, but many linger thereon through the winter. One of the great haunts of this Plover is along the shores of the Wash – that vast area of mud, and sand, and salt-marsh, which extends for miles in drear monotony, only enlivened and made endurable by the hordes of wild fowl that congregate upon its treacherous surface. Here, at the end of October, or during the first week in November, the migration of the Golden Plover can be observed in all its strength. Day after day, night after night, I have remarked the passage of this bird, in almost one unbroken stream, flock succeeding flock, so quickly as to form a nearly continuous throng. Upon the sands this Plover often associates with Dunlins, Gray Plovers, Lapwings, and other waders. Great numbers are, or used to be, shot or netted in this district, and sent to inland markets, for their flesh is justly esteemed for its delicacy, ranked by some as second only to that of the Woodcock. Golden Plovers feed and move about a good deal at night, especially by moonlight. Their food, during winter at least, consists of sand-worms and hoppers, molluscs, small seeds, and so on. The whistle of this Plover is one of the most attractive sounds of the mud-flats and salt-marshes. It may, under suitable atmospheric conditions, be heard for a long distance across the wastes, and sounds something like klee-wee, occasionally prolonged into klee-ee-wee. This note is uttered both while the bird is on the ground and in the air. In the pairing season it is run out into a trill. The movements of the Golden Plover during winter are largely regulated by the weather, and I have known it desert a district entirely, or become very restless and unsettled, just previous to a storm.

      In spring the sea coasts are deserted, and the Golden Plover retires to its breeding-grounds. These, in our islands, are situated on the upland moors and mountain plateaux. The nest, invariably made upon the ground, is often placed on a hassock of coarse herbage, or on a tuft of cotton grass, and consists merely of a hollow, lined with a few bits of withered grass or dead leaves. The eggs are four in number, buff blotched and spotted with various shades of brown, and more sparingly with gray. They are much richer and yellower in appearance than those of the Lapwing, otherwise closely resemble them.

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      Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory, p. 151, et seq.

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Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory, p. 151, et seq.

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