Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/43

Rh remain; their muddy bottoms are far deeper than the water that overlies them; here we found the gaudy shoveler drakes resting whilst their mates attended to domestic duties; here we disturbed the lively teal, and sent the mallard duck squattering to lure us from her scared flappers. A cormorant was swimming, its beak tilted upward, on one pool, a grey heron rose with a squawk from another; coots scuttled into the rushes, and moorhens swam rapidly into cover, jerking perky tails. From the dense fringe of aquatic vegetation came the long musical trill of the dabchick, and with its triple call a whimbrel came in from the sea and alighted to feed.

The bird of the marsh is the sedge-warbler; everywhere its chattering song drowned other bird notes; swinging on the stems, creeping amongst the rushes and equisetum, perched on the low hedge or tall weed, it poured its varied tunes upon the air—now sweet, now harsh, now but an oft-repeated chatter, now a soft, gentle warble. By the embankment, though the sun was shining brightly, that lover of the half-light, the grasshopper warbler, trilled its continuous song with wide-open mandibles; then like a mouse it crept, still singing, amongst the stems, and once, as it fluttered into the air to intercept a passing fly, expanded its rounded tail.

Below the railway the Cefni runs across level pastureland to the embankment and road between Newborough and Yard Malldraeth, better known as The Yard. Between road and embankment, a strong wide barrier to keep the sea from the fertile land, lie shallow lagoons, where swallows and martins skim, protected by the sea-wall from the breeze, where the sheld-ducks bathe and sandpipers indulge in nuptial flight. Beyond the sluices the river winds across a wide estuary, bordering the Warren. On the edge of Malldraeth Sands are saltings, flat land overgrown with rushes and intersected