" Peesweep's " Cry
When I was a boy I looked forward to the month of March and the nesting of the lapwing or " peesweep," as the bird was called locally. The search for the nest of the peesweep was a Sunday pastime fo'r ploughboys and schoolboys alike, and as soon as the birds were on the furrows the hopefuls would be out, eager to find the first nest. Sometimes, when we had had a hard winter, the laying was delayed, and no eggs were found until April. Although London hotels would pay well for plover-eggs in those days, most of the nests were robbed for the breakfast-table of the searcher himself. The protection of birds and their eggs may have saved the peesweep from the cruelty of robbers, but probably just as many nests as ever are raked into the earth by the teeth of the harrow. Yesterday 1 saw a great flock of the birds flying over the flat country near the sea, so they will not be nesting just yet. I get a thrill every year when I hear their cry over the ploughed field, just as I find something nostalgic in the cawing of rooks when the young turnips are up.
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