Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/76

62 with prospecting for nesting-sites in furze-bush or blackthorn hedge. Starlings are still flocking, and, though most of them will be nesting early next month, a limited number seem to shelve matrimonial duties, for they may be seen in small flocks all through April and May. In fact, the breaking up of the winter associations of small birds is by no means completed when March goes out.

Free to roam at will through the winter, many birds now seek their special nesting haunts. The Jackdaws are again noisy round the crumbling ruins of the abbey or the clefts and crevices of the limestone crag. The Kingfisher leaves the marsh ditches, and is seen again on the brook in the neighbourhood of the steep bank in which it excavates its burrow. Mountain and moor, which a month ago were deserted but for the noisy crowings and restless flights of the Red Grouse, again have their summer tenants. The Curlew whistles once more over the barren uplands and the Golden Plover's plaintive call comes from the dreary bog-lands. The Grey Wagtail seeks the merry north-country "beck" or Welsh trout-stream, to nest behind a tuft of fern on the moist ledges, having for neighbour the Dipper or Water Ouzel, whose nursery, a big flattened, dome-shaped structure of moss, lined with oak-leaves, is placed almost in the spray of the fall. On the coast Cormorants seek the pinnacled "stack," which for generations they have