File:Birds in their haunts, by the late C. A. Johns (1909) (14565722560).jpg

Identifier: cu31924001243561 (find matches)
Title: Birds in their haunts, by the late C. A. Johns
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Johns, C. A. (Charles Alexander), 1811-1874 Visger, Jean Allan (Pinder) Owen, 1841-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: London, G. Routledge New York, E. P. Dutton
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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flocks, or fly off, stfll keepingseparate, to some distant part of the marsh. On one occasion onlyhave I been enabled to approach near enough to a Redshankto watch its peculiar movements while feeding, and this observationI was much pleased in making, as it confirms the account of anotherobserver. A writer in the Naturalist, quoted by YarreU and Mac-gillivray, says : I was very much struck with the curious mannerin which they dart their bill into the sand nearly its whole length,by jumping up and thus giving it a sort of impetus, if I may usethe word, by the weight of their bodies pressing it downwards.This account Macgillivray, with an unamiable sneer too common inhis writings when he refers to statements made by others of factswhich have not fallen within his own observation, considers to beso inaccurate that he pronounces the birds to be not Redshanksat all, and calls them Irish Redshanks. On the occasion to whichI have referred, I saw at a distance a largish bird feeding on a bank
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Greenshank. Redshank $Blacktailed Godwit 2 Ruff & Reeve. Uacep.sro. THE GREENSHANK 271 of mud close to an embankment. Calculating as nearly as I couldhow many paces off it was, I cautiously crept along the other sideof the embankment; and when I had reached what I supposedwas the right spot, took off my hat and peeped over. Within a fewyards of me was an unmistakable Redshank, pegging with hislong beak into the mud, and aiding every blow with an impetus ofhis whole body. In my own mind I compared his movementswith those of a Nuthatch, with which I was quite familiar, and, thesurface of the mud being frozen hard, I imagined that the laboriouseffort on the part of the bird was necessitated by the hardness ofthe ground. Perhaps this may have been the case ; but, whetheror not, it is clear enough that the bird does, when occasion requiresit, lend the weight of his body to the effort of his beak in searchingfor food. I should add that I did not know, at the time, that anysimilar occurr

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