Naturalists and Visitors - Gower - page 19

oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus , a highly vocal bird with loud piping calls which often flies low
along the shoreline, exactly as Kilvert describes (Fig. 10). Their courtship display is one of the noisiest of
any British bird and has been called the 'piping display'. It consists of several birds walking around in an
agitated manner uttering a chorus usually described as 'kleep-kleep-kleep'. In flight the note, as Kilvert
found, is a shorter 'pic-pic'.
FIG 10. Oystercatchers off the Gower shore, as recorded by the Reverend Francis Kilvert. (Harold Grenfell)
Probably the most prolific painter of the local scene was Edward Duncan, who spent almost every
summer between 1865 and his death in 1882 in Gower. His paintings and sketches provide an unrivalled
record of the peninsula at this time and were produced in prodigious numbers (Fig. 11). In March 1885,
for example, Christie's auction house held a three-day sale of his 'remaining works' and another sale two
years later lists nearly 2,000 sketches and paintings. Among the hundreds of watercolour paintings ex-
hibited in London during his lifetime were 'The Bury Holmes, Rhossili Bay', 'The Worms Head, South
Wales','Worm'sHead,RhossiliBay'and'OysterdredgersoffMumbles'.Inthelastthreeyearsofhislife
the Royal Watercolour Society exhibited 'Oyster boats leaving with the turn of the tide', 'On the shore at
Porteynon' and 'A Gower cottage, Llanrhidian'. Many of these are now in the great national collections.
The Swansea Scientific Society (Fig. 12) was set up about 1890 and its reports, included in those of
the Royal Institution of South Wales, contain many short papers on Gower, which are mainly reports of
papers read at field meetings of the Society by the Reverend J. Jackett between 1891 and 1897. They are
of a popular nature and include 'On the wild flowers of the district' (Sand dunes at Port-Eynon), 'Notes
on the botany of Clyne and Killay districts' and 'The botany of Gower'.