It is in this district, from Brean Down westwards along the coast to Dunster, that I have been best able to observe and enjoy the beautiful sheldrake--almost the only large bird which is now permitted to exist in Somerset.
The sheldrake of the British Islands, called the common sheldrake (or sheld-duck) in the natural history books, for no good reason, since there is but one, is now becoming common enough as an ornamental waterfowl. It is to be seen in so many parks and private grounds all over the country that the sight of it in its conspicuous plumage must be pretty familiar to people generally. And many of those who know it best as a tame bird would, perhaps, say that the descriptive epithets of strange and beautiful do not exactly fit it. They would say that it has a striking appearance, or that it is peculiar and handsome in a curious way; or they might describe it as an abnormally slender and elegant-looking Aylesbury duck, whiter than that domestic bird, with a crimson beak and legs, dark-green glossy head, and sundry patches of chestnut-red and black on its snowy plumage. In calling it "strange" I was thinking of its manners and customs rather than of the singularity of its appearance.
As to its beauty, those who know it in a state of nature, in its haunts on the sea coast, will agree that it is one of the handsomest of our large wild birds. It cannot now be said that it is common, except in a few favoured localities. On the south coast it is all but extinct as a breeding species, and on the east side of England it is becoming increasingly rare, even in spots so well suited to it as Holy Island, and the coast at Bamborough Castle, with its great sand-hills. These same hills that look on the sea, and are greener than ivy with the everlasting green of the rough marram grass that covers them, would be a very paradise to the sheldrake, but for man--vile man!--who watches him through a spy-glass in the breeding season to rob him of his eggs. The persecuted bird has grown exceedingly shy and cautious, but go he must to his burrow in the dunes, and the patient watcher sees him at a great distance on account of his conspicuous white plumage, and marks the spot, then takes his spade to dig down to the hidden eggs.