Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/82

54 thickest. Thus the congested area upon the rocks, now thousands strong, was in constant unrest; birds from the outside dropped into the crush and pushed the outer members into the water, where the pies, at any rate, swam comfortably, though the bird, it is affirmed, only swims when wounded! With one lot of bar-tails, always a numerous autumn visitor to this coast, were five larger birds, standing higher on their darker legs, whose tails at once gave them away as the rarer black-tailed godwits.

Few wader notes are more beautiful than the liquid tluie of the grey plover, known to the local gunners as the silver plover to distinguish it from the golden and green plovers. Both these species are common on the marshes, but seldom come far seaward; the silver is the real shore bird. One or two "wings" passed, but did not settle; in winter dress as in summer the grey is one of the most beautiful of our many waders. Cormorants passed on strong wing, flying straight and with businesslike determination; they pass up to the edge of the marsh and hunt the gutters on the ebb. Away over Hilbre clouds of little birds and knots, too far off to distinguish species, turned and twisted, flashing like silvery rain as they swooped suddenly down; high tide for some means rest, for others aerial recreation. Away in the main wigeon, pintail, and a few mallard drifted up on the tide, avoiding the bustling tugs which thrust their way seaward, the flowing tide curling against their straining bows; here and there a scoter, black upon the water, allowed itself to be carried upstream, but the majority of these sea-ducks were diving over the submerged banks in the Bay. We neither saw nor heard the geese, pink-footeds and white-fronteds, which had arrived before September ended; they were up on the marshes or the Sealand fields.

Then came a lull. The last bank of empty cockle shells was covered in the little muddy inlets, cut deep in the