Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
There was always a halfpenny underneath the geranium pot in the window-sill for the child whose eye caught sight of the first swallow, redstart or sandpiper; or whose ear first recognised the clarion call of the cuckoo, or the evening "bleat" of the nightjar on the bracken-mantled fells at the end of May.
Amongst other totems were once the Bralgah, Native Companion, and Dibbee, a sort of sandpiper, but their kins are quite extinct as far as our blacks are concerned; the birds themselves are still plentiful.
Going a-fishing or a-berrying is a good introduction to the haunts of the birds, and to their nesting-places. You put forth your hand for the berries, and there is a nest; or your tread by the creeks starts the sandpiper or the water-thrush from the ground where its eggs are concealed, or some shy wood-warbler from a bush.
What a strange, composite creature he is! thrush, warbler, and sandpiper all in one; with such a bare-footed, bare-legged appearance, too, as if he must always be ready to wade; and such a Saint Vitus's dance! His must be a curious history. In particular, I should like to know the origin of his teetering habit, which seems to put him among the beach birds.
Now and then we recognise the flight of some particular species, the swinging loop of a woodpecker or goldfinch, or the flutter of a sandpiper. It has been computed that these birds sometimes fly as much as a mile or more above the surface of the earth, and when we think of the tiny, fluttering things at this terrible height, it takes our breath away.
"Because Sandpipers are long-legged little birds that run along the water's edge, where they patter about and whistle, but can't swim." And they all raced laughing up to the cabin, Rap saying cheerfully, "Then I'm not a Sandpiper, for I hop like a Robin instead of running." First he headed well out into the bay, and then tacked to enter the river where the channel was deepest.
Peter Sandpiper, talking to two fine young sandpipers, just hatched. "Nothing worth looking at!" said she, indignantly. "Well, anything but a crow would have more sense! Nothing in this bush, indeed! Pe-tweet, pe-tweet!" And truly she might well be angry at any one snubbing those young ones of hers.
By subtle hint of auto-suggestion this made Warble hungrier than ever and she looked around for Petticoat. But he was busy flirting with Daisy Snow, and it was not Warble's way to cut in. In hollow tones the performer read extracts, excerpts and exceptions from the works of Amy Lynn, Carl Sandpiper and Padriac, the Colyumist, and Warble went back to sleep.
The last two eat also other weevils which attack cotton, grapes and sugar beets. Bill-bugs, which often do considerable damage to corn, seem to be favorite food of some of the shorebirds. They are eaten by the Wilson phalarope, avocet, black-necked stilt, pectoral sandpiper, killdeer, and upland plover.
The same rapid development of wing may be observed in chickens and turkeys, but not in water-fowls, nor in birds that are safely housed in the nest till full-fledged. The other day, by a brook, I came suddenly upon a young sandpiper, a most beautiful creature, enveloped in a soft gray down, swift and nimble and apparently a week or two old, but with no signs of plumage either of body or wing.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking