miliar with the sounds made by a flock of sparrows when going to roost late in the autumn and winter,—a combination of a number of voices: very similar is the sound I am referring to, though individual notes sound less shrilly, and have less of the chiding character about them. When the tide has gone down, the large flocks break up into the smaller groups of twenty or thirty, alluded to above.
When the redshank "mobs" (the provincial phrase for its bold and reckless approach to man in the breeding season) its flight is somewhat peculiar. It is slow, with regular beats of the wings; and after each pulsation you may notice that the wings are kept depressed for a very perceptible space of time.
The nests of the pewit gull[1] (Larus ridibundus) and the oystercatcher (Hæmatopus Ostralegus) are to be met with occasionally in the same places with the redshank's; and I have been amused at times with the diverse habits of these birds when affected by the same motives. I remember on one occasion I had found a gull's nest and an oyster-catcher's within a few paces of each other, and had most convincing testimony, from the distress evinced by two or three redshanks, that one of theirs, at least, was not far distant. The latter conducted themselves after the manner I have endeavoured to describe; the gulls hovered over my head, now and then making a stoop at me, and almost brushing my hat with their wings, not making much outcry; but the oyster-catchers, though evidently watching my every motion, kept at a distance, flying up and down a large creek that was near, uneasily shifting their place if they happened to perch for a few moments, and uttering at short intervals their whistling note.
A redshank or two may sometimes be seen among a flock of oxbirds[2] (Tringa alpina and cinclus), which they seem to accompany in their flights for a short time; but it may be accounted for by supposing the companionship accidental; both kinds of birds procuring their food in similar places; and that the same cause—sudden alarm for instance—had caused them to take flight together.
Halton, Berwick-on-Tweed, June, 1843.
- ↑ The name of pewit-gull, given by Bewick as a synonyme of his black-headed gull, is now almost universally abandoned for the latter name.—Ed.
- ↑ This little bird is the dunlin and purre of Pennant, Montague and Bewick, all these authors having considered it a distinct species when in the winter plumage; hence the double names of alpina and cinclus. M. Meyer, in order to avoid this confusion, called the bird Tringa variabilis, and his nomenclature is followed by Temminck, Selby, Gould, and Jenyns.—Ed.
