Lake country sketches

by H. D. Rawnsley

WITH THE BLACK-HEADED GULLS IN CUMBERLAND.

There is no part of the Cumberland coast so full of witchery and romance as the point where Muncaster Fell comes down to the sea. The rivers of Irt, Mite and Esk, with their memories of the pearl-fisheries of olden time, swirl down toward the ancient harbour of the mythic 'King Aveling's Town.' One cannot look across the pool at full tide without thought of how the Vikings pushed their ships ashore here, when they came from Mona's Isle to harry Cumberland.

But the sound of earlier civilisations is in our ears as one gazes across the Ravenglass sand-dunes; for here beside us is the great cavern of ancient oaken-logs and earth, wherein the Cymri buried their dead in prehistoric time, and there within a stone's throw still upstands the seaside residence of some great Roman general, who was determined apparently to enjoy a well-heated house, and to do honour to the genius loci. No one who visits 'Walls' Castle, as it is called, but must be struck with the remains of the 'tepidarium,' and the little niche that held the statue of the tutelary god, or a bust of the presiding Cæsar, within the ample hall.

Away at our back rises the Muncaster Fell with its grey beacon-tower, its herd of deer, its wind-blown oaks, its primrose and bluebell haunted woods, that slope towards the Vale of Esk. Further inland, sheltered by its magnificent wall of forestry, stands rose-red one of the most interesting of our northern castles, with its long terrace-lawn of quite unequalled grace and loveliness. There in sheltered combe the rhododendrons bloom from earliest spring, and the air will to-day be honeysweet from laurel-flower far and wide.

But I was bent on seeing an older people than Cymri, Roman, Viking, or Castle-Lord, albeit the line of Pennington reached far into the past, and suited well his ancient castle hold. I had come in the last week of April, by courteous invitation, to renew acquaintance with that fast-growing colony of black-headed gulls that make the dunes of Ravenglass famous.

A boat was called, and leaving the pebbly beach that 'Stott of Oldham' so delights to paint, we rowed across the flooding tide of the Ravenglass harbour to the sand-dunes of happy quietude, where the oyster-catchers were sunning themselves, and where the sheldrake in her nesting season loves to hide. As one went forward over the dunes one felt back in the great desert of the Badiet-Tih, and expected to see Bedouins start from the ground, and camels come in single file with solemn sway round the sedge-tufted, wind-blown hillocks and hummocks of glaring sand.

Then suddenly the silence of the waste was broken by a marvellous sound, and a huge cloud of palpitating wings, that changed from black to white and hovered and trembled against the grey sea or the blue inland hills, swept by over-head. The black-headed gulls had heard of our approach, and mightily disapproved of our trespass upon their sand-blown solitude.

We sat down and the clamour died: the gulls had settled. Creeping warily to the crest of a great billow of sand, we peeped beyond. Below us lay a natural amphitheatre of grey-green grass that looked as if it were starred with white flowers innumerable. We showed our heads and the flowers all took wing, and the air was filled again with sound and intricate maze of innumerable wings.

We approached, and walking with care found the ground cup-marked with little baskets or basket-bottoms roughly woven of tussock grass or sea-bent. Each casket contained from two to three magnificent jewels. These were the eggs we had come so far to see. There they lay—deep brown blotched with purple, light bronze marked with brown, pale green dashed with umber, white shading into blue. All colours and all sizes; some as small as a pigeon's, others as large as a bantam's. Three seemed to be the general complement. In one nest I found four. The nests were so close to one another that I counted twenty-six within a radius of ten yards; and what struck one most was the way in which, instead of seeking shelter, the birds had evidently planned to nest on every bit of rising ground from which swift outlook over the gull-nursery could be obtained.

Who shall describe the uproar and anger with which one was greeted as one stood in the midst of the nests? The black-headed gull swept at one with open beak, and one found oneself involuntarily shading one's face and protecting one's eyes as the savage little sooty-brown heads swooped round one's head. But we were not the only foes they had had to battle with. The carrion crow had evidently been an intruder and a thief; and many an egg which was beginning to be hard set on, had been prey to the black robber's beak. One was being robbed as I stood there in the midst of the hubbub.

Away, for what seemed the best part of a mile, the 'gullery' stretched to the north in the direction of Seascale; and one felt that, thanks to the public-spirited owner of the seaboard, and the County Council of Cumberland, the black-headed gull was not likely to diminish in this generation.

Back to the boat we went with a feeling that we owed large apologies to the whole sea-gull race for giving this colony such alarm, and causing such apparent disquietude of heart, and large thanks to the lord of Muncaster for his ceaseless care of the wild sea-people whom each year he entertains upon his golden dunes.

That evening I went back in memory to the marvellous sight in the Gullery at Ravenglass. My thoughts took sonnet form as follows:

THE HOPE OF LIFE.

Sudden the lilies of each lonely mound
Sprang into voice and palpitating wing;
I seemed a guilty and unwelcome thing;
Ten thousand shadows round me and around
Perplexed the air and danced along the ground;
Each sooty head, in passion, dared to fling
A world's defiance—and I felt the sting
And arrows of that deprecating sound.

Then gazing downward at my feet I saw
The silent cause of all these sorrowful cries,
—Large jewels, blotched and brown and green and blue,
In simple caskets wove from rushy straw;
I thanked high Heaven for hearts so good and true,
And shared their hope for life that never dies.

They are a far-wandering nation these black-headed gulls. I had seen separate members of the tribe on the banks of the Neva, and later, on the banks of the Nile; for they are an adventurous race, and may be found as far north as Archangel and as far south as Nubia, but the next time that I saw them in any number they had changed not only their appearance but their manners. The black or, more properly speaking, brown head of the gull had become grey. It seems they only wear their black helmets or bonnets in summer time. Now it was winter, and they were as mild as doves—tamer birds could hardly be seen, and the history of their taming, as indeed of their presence so far inland as the Keswick valley, was very simple. There had been a very cruel wholesale poisoning of the fish in the river Greta—the black-headed gulls had heard of it, and came up the Derwent in great numbers to the feast. It cannot have been all pleasure, and to judge by the looks of some of the greedier of the class colic abounded. Whether it was the abundance of the feast or the after pain, that made an impression on the gull, I know not, but from that day to this the black-headed gentry of the seaboard have had such affection for our vale that any storm at sea or any scarcity of food brings them in great numbers to our valley pastures.

We had a hard winter three years ago, and wherever the rooks were seen upon the ground, the black flock was dappled with the white sea gull, and the dolorous voice of the crow was drowned in the laughter of the black-headed gull.

Very grateful were we in those sad and sombre winter mornings to hear the gulls laughing round our house-roofs, and not the least enjoyable thought as we went to our breakfast-table was the knowledge that these wild sea-people had come to trust us, and were willing to be our almoners.

There was one house in the valley, set upon a grassy hill overlooking the lake, which seemed especially to have charm for the bird visitors. Swift of ear, as of eye, the black-headed gulls noticed that the family went to breakfast at the sound of a gong. No sooner did that gong echo across the lawn, than the heaven became white with wings—a click at the gate was heard, and a maid with a large pancheon of food specially prepared—hot and tasty—was seen to come on to the grass and toss out the meal, in splotches, round about her. Then what had been a silent grey undulating cloud of wings broke up into a tangled mass of down-sweeping pink legs and up-sweeping white wings, and with the noise of laughter and talk unimaginable, the happy people fell to feeding.

I do not think that anything more dainty can be imagined than that swift balance of up-tilted wing and down-reaching rosy feet, unless it be the consummate care and nicety with which, before the black-headed gull put beak to food, it tucked those long sweeping slender wings close to its side.

Now and again as they fed, the whole flock would rise momentarily into air and float up as though blown from the earth by some invisible breath, and then, as silently and simultaneously, sink to earth again.

At times one noticed how, rising up, they seemed to move in exactly one position, moving their yellow rosy-stained beaks and grey heads from right to left as though they feared an enemy. Yet they had no need to fear, for it was quite clear that the rooks had been specially engaged by them to be their sentinels. There they sat each in solitary sable-hood, on the trees all round the lawn,—policemen on guard, and of such good manners, that until the visitors from the sea had eaten and were full, they did not think of claiming their share of the broken victual.

What astonished one most as these black-headed gulls came morning after morning to the sound of the gong, was their apparent determination to lose no time about their food. They sat down to table and rose up as one bird, but they were not more than ten minutes about their meal, and there was some reason for this. There were other breakfast tables spread for them on other lawns; the gong at Derwent Hill was after all but summons to a first course.

How mild, how gentle, with what dove-like tenderness did these grey-headed people of the sea appear as with merry laughter they sailed about my head, their feet tucked up like coral pink jewels against their breast; how unlike those fierce black-headed guardians of their nests and young, who had dashed at one, with open beak and scolding voice and angry wing, upon the spring-tide dunes of Ravenglass.