Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/71

Rh of the ridge prickly saltwort and sea-rocket were in seed, yellow berries richly adorned the sea-buckthorn, and the hedges further inland were bright with hips and haws. Provision for seed-eating birds was ample, and they did not neglect the lavish feast; linnets, redpolls, greenfinches, sparrows in dense packs swarmed over the aster, saltwort, and rocket; blackbirds, thrushes, and the lately arrived redwings on the larger fruits. Multitudes of snails crawl amongst the marram, and the thrushes have no lack of this. their favourite food; but on the ridge itself there are no stones to use as anvils for shell-smashing, but a stiff bent branch of sea-buckthorn is just as good; every few yards a litter of broken shells marks the abattoir and dining-table of some migratory thrush. Grass seed, insects, and molluscs supply all that the lapwings, larks, and pipits need in the efilds, whilst the abundant animal life of tidal mud and the refuse from the ports attracts waders and gulls to the Humber.

Daily the bird population alters in numbers and composition; birds arrive during the night and next morning skulk in the bushes or join their fellows in the fields. All day long diurnal movements of certain species may be noticed. Out of the void specks appear, high above the sea, and in a few moments these can be recognised as approaching larks, lapwings, hooded crows, or gulls. With a favourable wind they come in untired, dropping towards the beach, but seldom alight at once; but when they have been contending with a contrary wind these fresh arrivals are often so weary that it is almost impossible to flush them from the bushes or long grass in which they have taken refuge. I could one day have again and again kicked a lark which refused to move when I almost stepped upon it, and I sat on a balk of timber a foot or two away from a panting, palpitating sterling. One morning the ridge and every hedgerow