British Sea Birds

by Charles Dixon

During summer, this species (the Hæmatopus ostralegus of Linnæus and other systematists) south of the Yorkshire and Lancashire coasts, is decidedly local and rare; but north of those localities it becomes one of the most common and characteristic birds of the shore, even extending to the Shetlands, the wildest of the Hebrides and St. Kilda. It is of interest to remark that in some parts of Scotland the Oyster-catcher drops its marine habits, and frequents the banks of rivers and lochs. There is, perhaps, no more conspicuous, no more handsome, no more noisy bird along the coast, than the Oyster-catcher. It is worthily named “Sea Pie,” its strongly contrasted black and white plumage recalling at once the Magpie of the inland fields and woods. The favourite haunts of this species are long stretches of low, rocky coast, relieved here and there by patches of shingle and long reaches of sand, broken with quiet bays, creeks, and lochs, where a large amount of beach is exposed at low water. One may generally find an Oyster-catcher about rocky islands; it is also very partial to resting on these, between the tides. Few birds look daintier or prettier than the present species, as it stands motionless on some weed-grown rock, its pied plumage, rich orange-coloured bill, and flesh-pink legs, coming out boldly against the olive-green masses of algæ. It is not often, however, that we can approach sufficiently close to see such details; as a rule the bird rises piping shrilly into the air, before it is actually seen, and long before unaided vision can distinguish colours distinctly. During summer the Oyster-catcher can scarcely be regarded as gregarious, but in winter, when its numbers are increased by migrants from the north, flocks of varying size may be met with. When flushed, the flight of this bird is very erratic and very rapid, performed by quick and regular strokes of the long-pointed wings; and perhaps it is now that the colours of the bird are seen to best advantage. The call note is heard most frequently and persistently as the bird hurries away in alarm, or careers about the air overhead, anxious for the safety of its eggs or young. This note cannot readily be confused with that of any other bird upon the coast. It may best be described as a loud shrill heep-heep-heep. The food of the Oyster-catcher is composed of mussels, whelks, limpets, crustaceans, and small fish, together with various tender buds and shoots of marine plants. Its chisel-shaped bill enables it readily to detach limpets from the rocks, or force open the closed valves of the mussel or the cockle. Oyster-catchers often frequent certain spots on the coast to feed, visiting them as soon as the tide admits, with great regularity. It may here be remarked that this bird wades often through the shallows, but never swims, as far as I know, unless wounded.

The eggs of the Oyster-catcher are laid in May or June, in the north a little later than in the south. The nesting-place is usually a stretch of rough pebbles or a shingly beach in some quiet bay, a low rocky island, or even a stack of rocks. Although Oyster-catchers cannot be said to breed in colonies, like some of the Gulls and Terns, numbers of nests may be found at no great distance apart. The nest is simple in the extreme—a mere hollow, in and round which are neatly arranged flat pebbles and bits of broken shells. As a rule, several mock nests may be found near to the one containing the eggs. These eggs are usually three in number, but sometimes four, pale buff or brownish-buff in ground colour, blotched, spotted, and streaked with blackish-brown and gray. Two distinct types are noticeable: one in which the markings are streaky, and often form a zone; the other in which they are large, irregular, and distributed over most of the surface. As soon as the nest is approached the ever-watchful birds rise screaming into the air, and should many pairs be breeding in company, the din soon becomes general and deafening. It is under these circumstances alone that the Oyster-catcher permits man to approach it closely; at all other times it is certainly one of the shyest and wariest of birds on the coast.

RINGED PLOVER.

With the present species—or resident large race, the Ægialitis hiaticula major of Tristram, as we should more correctly describe it—we reach the true Plovers. The Ringed Plover is one of the most widely distributed of our coast birds, frequenting all the flat sandy shores of the British Islands, from the Shetlands, in the north, to the Channel Islands, in the south. And not only does it haunt the coast, but it is found on the banks of rivers and lochs in many inland districts. In many places this species is known as the “Ring Dotterel”; in others its local name is the “Sand Lark.” The favourite haunts of the Ringed Plover are the sandy portions of the beach; but in autumn and winter this bird frequently visits mud-flats. The Ringed Plover is about the size of a Thrush, and may be easily recognised by its broad white collar, black breast and cheeks, brown upper parts, and snow-white under parts. Its actions on the shore are most engaging, tripping here and there along the margin of the waves, over the wet sand and shingle, darting this way and that as some tempting morsel of food is discovered. If in autumn or winter, this Plover will generally be met with in flocks of varying size; if in summer in scattered pairs or parties composed of the birds breeding in the immediate neighbourhood. Ringed Plovers are most attached to certain haunts, and seem to frequent them year by year, notwithstanding continued persecution and disturbance. It is the same when they are feeding. If alarmed they usually rise in a compact bunch, fly out to sea a little way, then return inshore, perhaps passing two or three times up and down before finally alighting. Again and again may this action be repeated, although the flock has a tendency to break up if flushed many times in quick succession, and odd birds will fall out, or remain skulking amongst the shingle. A dense flock or bunch of Ringed Plovers is a pretty sight. The birds fly quickly, and wheel and turn with astonishing precision, now close to the waves, then up in the air above the horizon, often persistently uttering their shrill call note, which resembles the syllables too-it rapidly repeated. Occasionally a fair sprinkling of Sanderlings and Dunlins may be observed in the flocks of this species. If seriously alarmed the entire flock will mount up high, and go off to a distant part of the coast, or even divide into several smaller ones, each retiring to a different spot; but almost invariably they return, and reform into a single company on the old familiar sands, within a hour or so of their scattered departure. The food of this pretty little Plover consists of the smaller creatures of the shore, such as minute sand-worms, shrimps, sand-hoppers, tiny molluscs, and insects. That this species occasionally eats vegetable substances I have assured myself by repeated dissection.

Although the Ringed Plover appears only to rear one brood in the year, its laying season is prolonged from the middle of April to the beginning of June. Early in April the winter flocks begin to disband, and the birds to disperse over their breeding places. Many pairs may be found breeding on one large stretch of sand in a suitable district. Some individuals seek an inland site for their eggs, on the bank of a stream or lake, but the majority prefer the sands of the sea-shore. Occasionally the nest has been discovered remote from water. This Plover makes no nest. The eggs sometimes are laid in a hollow of the sand, but just as frequently on the level surface. The fine sand is always preferred to the shingle, as the eggs best harmonize in appearance with it, their fine markings becoming more conspicuous on the coarser surface. The bird sits lightly: indeed it is most exceptional to see one rise from its eggs, unless the spot had been previously marked. When disturbed, the birds exhibit but little outward manifestation of alarm. They may be seen running to and fro about the sand, but their behaviour is very different from that of the Lesser Terns, which often nest on the same sands. The eggs of the Ringed Plover are always four in number, very pyriform in shape, and invariably laid with the pointed ends turned inwards. They are large in proportion to the bird, and pale buff or stone colour sparingly spotted and speckled with blackish-brown and ink-gray. During May and June a smaller and darker race of Ringed Plover passes along our coasts, to breed further north; appearing on the return journey during August, September, and October. There is some evidence to suggest that this race breeds sparingly on the coasts of Kent and Sussex.

KENTISH PLOVER.

This species, the Ægialitis cantiana of ornithologists, is one of the most local of British birds. Stragglers have been obtained here and there along the coast line between Yorkshire and Cornwall, but its only known nesting places are on certain parts of the coasts of Kent and Sussex. It is now nearly a century ago since this Plover was first made known to science by Lewin, who figured it in his Birds of Great Britain; and by Latham, who described and named it in the supplement to his great work, the Index Ornithologicus, from examples which had been obtained on the Kentish shingles by Mr. Boys of Sandwich. The Kentish Plover bears a superficial resemblance to the Ringed Plover, but may readily be distinguished by the broken pectoral band, represented by a dark patch on each side of the breast, and the reddish-brown nape and crown. Unlike the preceding species, this Plover is a summer migrant only to the British coasts, arriving towards the end of April or early in May, and departing again with its young in August or September. Odd birds, however, have been met with during winter. The Kentish Plover does not differ in its habits in any marked degree from the Ringed Plover, and frequents very similar localities, stretches of sand and shingle. Like that bird, it also gathers into small parties during summer; but in our islands, where its numbers are limited, we more usually find it in isolated pairs on various suitable parts of the shore. It possesses the same restless habits; running about the wet shining sands and shingles close to the breaking waves, in quest of the sand-hoppers, crustaceans, worms, and other small marine creatures on which it feeds. It cannot be regarded as a shy bird, permitting a somewhat close approach, and manifesting little fear or alarm even when its breeding grounds are invaded by man. Its alarm note may be described as a shrill ptirr, but the usual call is a clear loud whit, which, during the love season, is frequently uttered so quickly as to form a sort of trill, as the cock bird soars and flies round and round above his mate. The Ringed Plover utters a very similar trill during the pairing season.

The Kentish Plover rears but one brood during the summer, and preparations are made for this towards the end of May. It is not improbable that this Plover pairs for life, seeing that the same localities are visited year by year for nesting purposes. It makes no nest, the eggs being laid in a little hollow amongst the coarser sand or the shingle, or on a drift of dry seaweed and other shore débris. The eggs are usually three, but occasionally four in number, and are pale or dark buff in ground colour, blotched, scratched, and spotted with blackish-brown and slate-gray. As is the almost invariable custom with birds breeding on bare plains and beaches—and whose eggs are protectively coloured—the Kentish Plover sits lightly, rises from her eggs as soon as danger is discovered, and evinces but little outward anxiety for their safety; although, in some instances, the feigning of lameness has been resorted to, especially when the eggs have been on the point of hatching. The young birds and their parents form a family party during the autumn, and apparently migrate southwards in close company.

With the present species we exhaust the number of Limicoline birds that nest upon the shore in the British Islands. All the other species that make our sands and mud-flats their winter home, or their place of call during their spring and autumn migrations, breed away from the actual beach on marshes and moors and uplands, or do not rear their young at all within our area. Closely associated with most of these birds are the fascinating problems of Migration. We miss the feathered hosts from sand and mud-flat as the spring advances; we note the fleeting appearance of others along the shore bound to far away northern haunts: and then long before the first faint signs of autumn are apparent these migrant birds begin to return, and imbue the wild lone slob-lands and shingles with life. To and fro with each recurring spring and autumn, the stream of avine life flows and ebbs; by day and by night the feathery tides press on, calling forth wonder from the least observant, filling more thoughtful minds with the complexity and the mystery of it all. We have not space to deal here with this grand avine movement; but, content with this passing allusion to it, pass on to a study of the other feathered dwellers by the sea. (Conf. [p. 281]).

It is rather remarkable how few species of Limicoline birds breed on the British coast-line. Not a single Sandpiper nor Snipe does so, and but two or three Plovers, as we have already seen. So far as summer is concerned, these wading birds cannot be regarded as a very remarkable feature of avine life upon the coast; and it is, doubtless, because they are so little known to the majority of seaside visitors, that they appeal so much less to the popular mind than the more ubiquitous Gulls. But from September onwards to the following spring, Plovers and Sandpipers are the most prominent characteristics of all the more low-lying coasts. We will briefly glance at those species that not only frequent such situations regularly every season, but occur in sufficient numbers to place them beyond the category of abnormal visitors, or storm-driven wanderers from their natural haunts.