British Birds in Their Haunts

by C. A. Johns

THE AVOCET
RECURVIROSTRA AVOCÉTTA

General plumage white; crown, nape, scapulars, lesser wing-coverts, and primaries, black; bill black; irides reddish brown; feet bluish ash. Length eighteen inches. Eggs olive-brown, blotched and spotted with dusky.

This bird has become so rare, that having recently applied to two several collectors in Norfolk, once the headquarters of the Avocet, to know if they could procure me a specimen, I was told by one that they were not seen oftener than once in seven years—by the other, that it was very rare, and if attainable at all could not be purchased for less than five pounds. In Ray's time it was not unfrequent on the eastern maritime coasts. Small flocks still arrive in May and now and again in the autumn, but collectors never allow them to breed. They used to rest on the flat shores of Kent and Sussex. Sir Thomas Browne says of it: 'Avoseta, called shoeing horn, a tall black and white bird, with a bill semicircularly reclining or bowed upward; so that it is not easy to conceive how it can feed; a summer marsh bird, and not unfrequent in marsh land.' Pennant, writing of the same bird, says: 'These birds are frequent in the winter on the shores of this kingdom; in Gloucestershire, at the Severn's mouth; and sometimes on the lakes of Shropshire. We have seen them in considerable numbers in the breeding season near Fossdike Wash, in Lincolnshire. Like the Lapwing, when disturbed, they flew over our heads, carrying their necks and long legs quite extended, and made a shrill noise (twit) twice repeated, during the whole time. The country people for this reason call them Yelpers, and sometimes distinguish them by the name of Picarini. They feed on worms and insects, which they suck with their bills out of the sand; their search after food is frequently to be discovered on our shores by alternate semicircular marks in the sand, which show their progress.[48] They lay three or four eggs, about the size of those of a Pigeon, white, tinged with green and marked with large black spots.' Even so recent an authority as Yarrell remembers having found in the marshes near Rye a young one of this species, which appeared to have just been hatched; he took it up in his hands, while the old birds kept flying round him.

The Avocet is met with throughout a great part of the Old World, and is said to be not unfrequent in Holland and France. A writer of the latter country says that 'by aid of its webbed feet it is enabled to traverse, without sinking, the softest and wettest mud; this it searches with its curved bill, and when it has discovered any prey, a worm for instance, it throws it adroitly into the air, and catches it with its beak'.

[48] It is not a little singular that the Spoonbill, a bird which strongly contrasts with the Avocet in the form of its bill, ploughs the sand from one side to another, while hunting for its food.

THE GREY PHALAROPE
PHALÁROPUS FULICARIUS

Winter—plumage in front and beneath white; back of the head, ear-coverts, and a streak down the nape, dusky; back pearl-grey, the feathers dusky in the centre, a white transverse bar on the wings; tail-feathers brown, edged with ash; bill brown, yellowish red at the base; irides reddish yellow; feet greenish ash. Summer—head dusky; face and nape white; feathers of the back dusky, bordered with orange-brown; front and lower plumage brick-red. Length eight inches and a half. Eggs greenish stone colour, blotched and spotted with dusky.

The Grey Phalarope, without being one of our rarest birds, is not of irregular occurrence. Its proper home is in the Arctic regions, from whence it migrates southward in winter. It is a bird of varied accomplishments, flying rapidly like the Snipes, running after the fashion of the Sandpipers, and swimming with the facility of the Ducks. In all these respects it does not belie its appearance, its structure being such that a naturalist would expect, à priori, that these were its habits. During the breeding season, the Phalarope quits the sea, its usual haunt, and repairs to the sea-shore, where it builds a neat nest, in a hollow of the ground, with grass and other weeds, and lays four eggs. The usual time of its appearance in Great Britain is autumn; sometimes it comes then in numbers; but specimens have been obtained in winter. On all these occasions it has shown itself singularly fearless of man.

THE RED-NECKED PHALAROPE
PHALÁROPUS HYPERBOREUS

Head deep ash-grey; throat white; neck bright rust-red; under plumage white, blotched on the flanks with ash; back black, the feathers bordered with rust-red; a white bar across the wing; two middle tail-feathers black, the rest ash, edged with white; bill black; irides brown; feet greenish ash. Length seven inches. Eggs dark olive, closely spotted with black.