Identifier: muttonbirdsother00guth (find matches)
Title: Nest of Dotterel, in Mutton birds and other birds
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Guthrie-Smith, H. (Herbert), 1861-1940
Subjects: Birds -- New Zealand
Publisher: Christchurch, N.Z. : Whitcombe and Tombs
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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the Dotterel hen moved off, running just in front of the chick, now fit and strong again and able to endure the buffeting of the storm. Next morning we re-visited the flat beneath the granite hill, and again noted the two pair of Dotterel. Each couple was, as on the previous day, somewhere about the same spot; as before, too, each pair simulated uneasiness, though not to a marked degree. I worked the supposed nesting site of one pair, McLean the other; but neither of us was successful. We then proceeded towards our goal by brute force and sheer weight of metal. Nice observation was impossible. The footmarks of the little birds were imperceptible on the hard surface, and were, on the dry sand, everywhere adrift and instantly drying between the showers, in a few seconds obliterated. There were none of those little signs that lead gradually to discovery and make birdnesting so fascinating a pastime. Although large tracts were, in our opinion, impossible for nesting purposes, we strode over
PLATE XLVI.
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Nest of Dotterel.
AND OTHER BIRDS 107
every inch of the plain half a chain apart. we marched thus, north and south, and then, with a pause for formulation of theories why the Dotterel must all indubitably have already hatched their eggs and why they could not possibly all have hatched their eggs, east and west. I then got McLean to walk across the plain whilst I hid amongst flax on the edge of a dune; this plan however utterly failed, as it was impossible on account of the sand to keep the eyes open. Running first after one bird and then after the other and attempting capture, I allowed the pair to imagine they were fooling me to the top of my bent. Thus I allowed them to beguile me across the plain and high into the sand dunes. There the birds left me, but, turning instantly as they flew over my head and continuing my uninterrupted walk backwards, I noted their return to the spot marked on the first day by a little cairn. Hoping that McLean might have overlooked the eggs, this spot was revisited.

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