He was a Finlander, Olaf Neilsen, who kept boats in summer, fished, and tended two buoy lights at the river entrance for a living.

His hut stood on a point, with the sandy beach of the bay in front of it, and the steeper bank where the river ran on the left.

All the time the water was rushing out, out, out of the river and creeping down on the sand to make low tide.
The children did not know it then, but they were to spend many happy days on this beach, in company with their uncle and Olaf, during the next two years.
The Doctor whispered something mysterious to Olaf about clams, hoes, and "dead low water"; then he told the children to rest awhile under the pine shelter, and hear about the Blackbirds before they went out to see them in the meadows.
THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD (THE HUSSAR) "This handsome Blackbird comes early and stays late in places where he does not linger all the year.

He loves wet places, and his note is moist and juicy, to match his nesting haunts.

'Oncher-la-ree!' he calls, either in flying or as he walks along the ground after the fashion of his brethren--for Blackbirds never hop, like most birds, with both feet together, but move one after the other, just as we do.
"The Redwings are sociable birds, nesting in small colonies, and when once settled they never seem to stray far from home.