Part 32
It is from its exceedingly violent down-rushing method of attack that the great skua derives its specific name of _catarrhactes_. It rushes down like a cataract. This is an ancient name for a bird of prey, and, in this case, a singularly fit one. But what shall we say of Brisson’s hideous and ridiculous invention of _Stercorarius_ as the generic name for all the skuas?
Richardson’s Skua.
Stercorarius crepidatus.
Crown dusky; cheek, neck, and under parts white tinged with yellow and brown; rest of the plumage dusky. Length, twenty inches.
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This species breeds in the Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Shetlands; it is also said to be a regular breeder in Sutherlandshire. It is a much more numerous species than the great skua, being a regular visitor to the coasts of Scotland in the autumn and spring migrations. In its preying habit it resembles the bonxie, but, unlike that species, is gregarious. It breeds on moors, often at a considerable distance from the sea, and its nests are widely scattered on the breeding-ground. A slight hollow in the ground, with a little dry grass for lining, serves as a receptacle for the eggs. Two eggs are laid, and in some cases only one. These vary greatly in shape, some being nearly round, others long and pointed. In ground-colour they vary from russet-brown to pale olive, and are evenly and sparingly spotted with dark brown.
A curious fact about this species is that there are two forms, one light in colour, the other dark, and that these habitually interbreed; but the young, instead of being intermediate, are, according to Seebohm, light or dark, like one of the parents.
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The pomatorhine skua (_S. pomatorhinus_) is an autumn and spring visitor on migration to the seas in the vicinity of the British coasts. In some seasons it occurs in large numbers, but is not very regular in its appearance. Buffon’s skua (_S. parasiticus_) is a rare and irregular visitor on migration to the British coasts. It breeds in the arctic regions, and is circumpolar.
Stormy Petrel.
Procellaria pelagica.
Upper parts black, except the tail-coverts, which are white at their bases; edges of the wing-coverts slightly edged with white; under parts sooty black; bill and feet black. Length, six inches.
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The names of stormy petrel and Mother Carey’s chicken are as familiar to everyone as that of rook, or partridge, or hedge-sparrow; but the little bird they belong to is known by sight to comparatively few persons. It is pre-eminently an oceanic species, that comes to land only to breed; its breeding-places are on remote and lonely islands not easy of access; and, when breeding, the bird is nocturnal in habits, and it would be possible for anyone to spend many days in the very midst of a colony of petrels and not see them, or suspect that they were there.
The name of stormy petrel has been altered in several modern ornithological works to that of storm petrel; and on this subject Seebohm makes a delightfully characteristic observation. ‘The words stormy petrel,’ he writes, ‘are doubtless a very ungrammatical combination, as many other familiar English words are; but that is no reason why they should be altered, although they may have offended the ears of Yarrell and his academical friends.’ The rebuke is the more deserved when we remember that these same ‘academical friends’ have been quick to ridicule the attempts of certain ornithologists to substitute the name of hedge-accentor for that of hedge-sparrow--the absurdest name of all, but ‘consecrated,’ as they say, by long use, and Shakespeare. The name of ‘petrel’ comes about in a very curious way. It is the diminutive of Peter, given to the bird on account of a habit it has, when gliding along just above the surface, of dropping its feet and paddling, producing the idea that it is walking on the water. I am not quite sure that this is a correct derivation; Peter (the apostle), it will be remembered, was not wholly successful in his attempt to walk on the waves. Sailors call the petrels ‘Mother Carey’s chickens’; but not, as might be imagined from such a name, on account of any tender regard or feeling of affection for the birds. Mother Carey is supposed to be a kind of ocean witch, a supernatural Mother Shipton, who rides the blast, and who has for attendants and harbingers the little dark-winged petrels, just as the more amiable Mother Venus had her doves.
The stormy petrel is known to be the smallest bird with webbed feet, consequently his smallness is to the ornithologist his chief distinction. He is no bigger than a sparrow, and when seen flying in the wake of a ship, gliding to and fro close to the surface, his small size, sharp-pointed, swallow-like wings, dark plumage, and snow-white rump, give him the appearance of the house-martin. Like other pelagic birds, the petrel when on the wing is perpetually seeking its food, and is seen to drop often on to the surface to pick up some floating particle from the water; and yet to this day ornithologists do not accurately know what it feeds on. The bird is generally excessively fat, and when taken in the hand it ejects a small quantity of amber-coloured oil from its mouth. When dissected, its stomach is found to contain an oily fluid, and the young are fed with the same substance, injected by the parent bird into their mouths. Where this oil springs from, and how it comes to be floating on the water, is one of the secrets of the sea which this bird shares with other members of the petrel family; but they have no tongue to tell it.
The petrels do not arrive at their breeding-grounds until about the middle of June. They have colonies on the Scilly Islands, and at various other points on the west coast to St. Kilda, and the Orkneys and Shetlands. A few small colonies are also found on some of the islands on the Irish coast. The birds breed in holes in stone walls and piles of loose stones, and, in some localities, in old rabbit-burrows and holes in banks. A single egg is laid, on a slight bed of grass; it is very large for the bird’s size, rough in texture, pure white, and in most cases thinly sprinkled with minute reddish brown specks.
The young birds are fed at night, and may then be heard faintly clamouring for food after dark.
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The fork-tailed, or Leach’s petrel (_Procellaria leucorrhoa_), is a larger bird than the last, being about the same size as the swift. It is a much rarer species than the stormy petrel, and has only two known breeding-places in the United Kingdom, one at St. Kilda, the other on the island of North Rona, off the west coast of Scotland. On all other parts of the British coast it is known only as a storm-driven straggler. The birds breed in June, in holes which they make in the soft peaty soil to a depth of two or three feet, or deeper. A slight nest of dry grass is made, and a single egg deposited, pure white in colour, with a zone of small reddish spots at the large end. During the daytime the birds remain silent in their holes; in the evening they become active and garrulous.
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Wilson’s petrel (_Oceanites oceanicus_), a bird about the size of a swift, with a black plumage and white rump, appears occasionally as a straggler in the British Islands. Its only known breeding-grounds are in the southern hemisphere.
Manx Shearwater.
Puffinus anglorum.
Bill blackish; legs and feet yellowish flesh-colour; crown, nape, and upper parts sooty black; under parts white; sides of neck mottled with greyish brown. Length, fifteen inches.
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The Manx shearwater is the most abundant and best known of the four petrels that frequent the British seas. It has several breeding-stations in the Channel and along the west coast of Great Britain, and a few on islands off the coast of Ireland; but its principal colonies are on St. Kilda, the sea-bird’s paradise. Like the stormy petrel, the shearwater is nocturnal in its habits during the summer, feeding by night, and remaining concealed in its burrows during the day. In winter it seeks its food at all hours. It has the same habits as the stormy petrel of dropping its feet and paddling in the water, while sustained by its motionless, outspread wings. Its name of shearwater is derived from its custom of gliding along very close to the surface. Seebohm likens it to ‘a gigantic swift’ in appearance as it careers to and fro over the waves when the gale is at its height. Except when breeding its whole time is spent on the open sea: it is as truly at home on the stormy Atlantic, a thousand miles from the nearest land, as is the blackbird in its favourite shrubbery or the sedentary owl in its hollow beech-tree. But it remains longer at its breeding-grounds than the other species. At St. Kilda it begins to arrive as early as February, and remains until the end of the summer. It forms a burrow, often of great depth, in the peaty soil, and lays a single egg, pure white, and smooth in texture. According to Dixon, the birds are very garrulous at night, uttering their peculiar notes both when flying and in their nesting-holes; the syllables ‘Kitty-coo-roo’ are given by this author in imitation of the notes.
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The sooty shearwater (_Puffinus griseus_) and the greater shearwater (_P. major_) are occasionally met with in autumn and winter on the British coasts. A third species, the dusky shearwater (_P. obscurus_), has a place in the list of British birds, two specimens having been obtained in the United Kingdom.
Fulmar.
Fulmarus glacialis.
Bill yellow; legs and feet grey; mantle and tail grey; quills dusky; head, neck, and under parts white. Length, nineteen inches.
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The fulmar is the largest of the petrels; it exceeds the black-headed gull and common gull in size, and is a giant by comparison with its diminutive relation, the stormy petrel. It is a circumpolar species, and in winter inhabits the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the northern hemisphere. On the British coasts it is a rare straggler in winter, and its only breeding-station in the United Kingdom is at St. Kilda. It is said that formerly there were several colonies on the west coast of Scotland, but these no longer exist. In its manner of flight and general appearance the fulmar is gull-like, and may easily be mistaken for a gull. Like other petrels, it lives, when not engaged in breeding, on the open sea, and it often follows the deep-sea fishing-boats and whalers, to feed on the offal thrown out and portions of blubber floating on the water. Seebohm says that ‘if a piece of meat be thrown to them, they often seize it before it sinks, but instead of diving after it, as a duck or guillemot would do, they alight on the surface feet first, and in the most comical way let themselves sink down in the water with uplifted wings.’
The fulmar lays a single white egg in a shallow hole dug in the peaty soil. Dixon has the following graphic account of the breeding-haunts and habits of the fulmar: ‘In many places, although the cliff is very precipitous, it is covered with grass, sorrel, and other plants, and a loose, rich soil. It is in such spots that the fulmar breeds in the greatest numbers. I shall never forget the imposing effect of this noble bird-nursery.... When I reached the summit the scene was grand: tens of thousands of fulmars were flying silently about in all directions, but never by any chance soaring over the land; they passed backwards and forwards along the face of the cliff, and for some considerable distance out to sea, whilst the waves, a thousand feet below, were dotted thickly with floating birds. The silence of such an animated scene impressed me: not a single fulmar uttered a cry.... No bird flies more gracefully than the fulmar: it seems to float in the air without any exertion, often passing to and fro for minutes together with no perceptible movement of its wings.... It is a remarkably tame bird, fluttering along within a few feet of you, its black eye glistening sharply against its snow-white dress.... In some parts of the cliffs, where the soil is loose and turf-grown, the ground is almost white with sitting fulmars. Every available spot is a fulmar’s nest; and as you explore the cliffs, large numbers of birds fly out from all directions where they had not previously been noticed.... It very rarely burrows deep enough in the ground to conceal itself whilst incubating, and in the majority of cases only makes a hole large enough to half-conceal itself, whilst in a great many instances it is content to lay its eggs under some projecting tuft, or even on the bare and exposed ledge of a cliff, in a similar place to that so often selected by the guillemot.... The nests are very slight, and in a great number of instances are dispensed with altogether.’
Of the number of fulmars, the same observer says: ‘The myriads of birds were past all belief: the air was darkened with their numbers; still the cliffs were white with birds, and I calculated that not more than one in ten had risen. The fulmars filled the air like large snowflakes, and the hordes of puffins looked like a huge swarm of bees, darkening the air as far as we could see. Myriads of birds swept round the vessel or filled the air above; the face of the cliffs seemed crumbling away as the living masses swept seaward; yet, singularly enough, little noise was made beyond the humming of countless wings. The mighty peaks of these solitary ocean rocks were indistinctly seen through the surging cloud of birds, that seemed almost as if it would descend and overwhelm us.’[2]
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Two petrels remain to be noticed: the capped petrel (_Œstrelata hæsitata_) and Bulwer’s petrel (_Bulweria columbina_), one straggler having been obtained of the first species, and two of the second, on the east coast of England.
Great Northern Diver.
Colymbus glacialis.
Bill black; irides red; head and neck black, glossed with purple on the upper throat, and with green on the lower neck; two throat-bands black barred with white; mantle black spotted with white; under parts white. Length, thirty-three inches.
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The great northern diver, or loon, is called great because he exceeds the other divers in size; in this sense he is also great in relation to birds generally, since he is as big as a goose, and therefore the equal of the few species that are greatest. In form he differs widely from the geese. An oceanic bird that escapes from its enemies by diving, and is never seen on the wing except when migrating, and never on land except when breeding, his form has been modified so as to make swimming and diving as easy to him as careering through the air is to the swift, and climbing on trees to the woodpecker. The beak is straight, conical, and sharp-pointed; the head, neck, and body, grebe-like in form; and the legs set so far back that the bird is almost incapable of progression on land. It is very wonderful that a creature that spends so great a part of its time on and in the water, without leaving it, should yet retain wing-power sufficient to perform long bi-annual migrations. Probably it does not take very extended flights; when found on inland waters during migration, it often appears incapable of flight, and if in a small stream is easily taken. In its flying powers it appears, with the grebes and auks, to occupy a position midway between the ever-soaring, aërial gannet and the penguins, that are incapable of flight. In their dark rich, variegated upper, and white under, plumage, the divers again resemble the grebes. The glossy black back, thickly strewn with symmetrical white spots, gives the present species a beautiful and somewhat singular appearance. Out at sea it is a silent bird--silent and shy and solitary--with the cormorant-like habit of making itself invisible by sinking its body beneath the water. In the breeding season it utters cries of a very strange character, powerful and uncanny in their effect on the mind, and compared by different listeners to screams uttered by tortured children, and to shrieks of insane laughter. It is a winter visitor to the British Islands, chiefly to the west coasts of Scotland and England: but as it has occasionally been met with in summer in full nuptial plumage, it is thought by some ornithologists that a few pairs may remain to breed in some of the secluded lakes in the west of Scotland, the Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys, and Shetlands. It has not yet been found breeding anywhere in continental Europe; its known breeding-grounds are in Iceland, and in America, from Greenland to Alaska. It breeds in secluded lakes and tarns, at no great distance from the sea, and prefers an island to nest on; but where no island exists the nest is placed on the shore close to the water. Two eggs are laid, varying in ground-colour from olive-brown to russet-brown, spotted somewhat thinly with black.
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The family of divers (Colymbidæ) consists of four species, all contained in one genus; and of the four, three are British. In habits, as well as in structure, they are so closely related that a very brief description of the other two is all that will be necessary. The black-throated diver (_Colymbus arcticus_) is much smaller than the great northern diver, its length being twenty-six inches. Bill black; irides red; crown and hind head ash-grey; upper parts blackish, spotted and barred with white; throat purplish black, with a half-collar of short white streaks; sides of neck striped with black and white; under parts white.
This diver breeds in small numbers on the west coast of Scotland and in the Outer Hebrides. To other parts of the country it is an accidental visitor. It is less oceanic in its habits than the last species described, and goes to a greater distance from the sea to breed. Two eggs are laid, similar in colour to those of the great northern diver.
The red-throated diver (_Colymbus septentrionalis_) is the smallest of the three species, its length being twenty-three inches. It has the head, throat, and sides of the neck mouse-colour; crown spotted with black; neck marked with black and white lines; on the front of the neck a large orange-coloured patch; back dusky brown; under parts white.
This species breeds in the west and north of Scotland, and in the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetlands.
Great Crested Grebe.
Podiceps cristatus.
Crown and crest and ruff dark brown and chestnut; cheeks white; upper parts dark brown; secondaries white; under parts silky white. Length, twenty-two inches.
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The great crested grebe still survives as a British species, although it is a large and handsome bird, and, like all those to which such a description applies, it has been much persecuted. Among our large water-birds there are few more strikingly handsome and stately in appearance than this grebe in its full breeding-plumage, when viewed as it floats, unalarmed, on the secluded reed-fringed water it loves. The swan, in its immaculate white dress, with proudly arched neck and plume-like scapulars, when seen ‘floating double,’ is to many minds the most perfect type of a beautiful waterfowl; certainly it is the most familiar. The great grebe has a very different appearance, with its straight neck, long, boat-shaped body, dark upper and silvery under plumage, and its broad ruff and double, ear-like crest; but in some aspects he is not less attractive than the white, larger bird, especially when sailing peacefully in close proximity to tall, slender reeds, their beauty, and that of the bird, enhanced by the ‘magic of reflection,’ when both seem part of the glassy pool, and made for one another.
Although in sadly diminished numbers, the great crested grebe still breeds regularly in many localities in England, especially in the eastern counties, and in a few situations in Wales and Ireland. In the northern counties of England it is very rare, and does not breed in Scotland: it is there a winter migrant from the north of Europe.
The habits of the grebe when on the water are similar to those of the diver. It is adapted to a swimming and diving existence; feeds on fish, frogs, water-beetles, and other small aquatic creatures; when alarmed it sinks its body deeper and deeper into the water, and when pursued, or in danger, seeks to escape by diving. It makes little use of its wings, except when migrating. At most times it is a silent bird, but in the breeding season utters a harsh, grating cry.
The grebe makes a large platform nest of aquatic plants, placed on the water among the reeds. Four eggs are laid, the shell pale blue in colour, but covered with a soft, white, chalky substance. Invariably, when leaving the nest the bird covers the eggs with moss and weeds, and the usual inference is that this is done to hide them from rapacious egg-eating birds; but Seebohm is of the opinion that the eggs are covered to be kept warm, and he says that they are covered only after the full complement is laid and incubation begun.
Little Grebe, or Dabchick.
Tachybaptes fluviatilis.
Head, neck, and upper parts dark brown; a little white on the secondaries; chin black; cheeks, throat, and sides of the neck reddish chestnut; under parts greyish white; flanks dusky brown; bill horn-colour; legs and feet dull green. Length, nine inches and a half.
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The little grebe, or dabchick, is less than the teal in size, and differs from the great crested grebe in about the same degree as the partridge does from the pheasant. It is the one common and well-known species of grebe in this country, being resident in suitable localities in all parts of the United Kingdom. In summer it is generally diffused, and is to be met with even on small pools and streams; in winter it shifts its ground, resorting to the rivers and larger bodies of water, and in very severe weather to the sea-coast.
It begins to breed at the end of April or early in May, and forms a floating nest of aquatic weeds and grasses close to the bank or among the reeds, but in most cases little care is taken to conceal the nest. The eggs are three or four to six in number, and are white, and rough in texture. Before quitting the nest the incubating bird invariably covers the eggs with wet leaves and grass, drawn in from the edge of the nest. It is hard to believe, with Seebohm, that the object of this action is to keep the eggs warm. The nest is, in very many cases, conspicuous to the eye, but on the slightest alarm the sitting-bird quickly and deftly draws the dead, wet materials like a blanket over the eggs, and, slipping off, dives silently, to come up at a considerable distance, usually where it cannot be seen. The nest then presents the appearance of a mere bunch of dead and water-soaked weeds or grass floating on the surface. I have examined a good many nests, and am convinced that the eggs are covered to hide them from the sight of egg-robbing animals, and that only the egg-robber that is neither furred nor feathered, and is well acquainted with the habits of the bird, is capable of seeing through this pretty deception.