Among the Birds in Northern Shires

by Charles Dixon

Sheldrakes.

Travelling northwards again until we reach the coast of Northumberland, where between the towns of North Sunderland and Berwick we shall find another length of shore of great interest to the ornithologist. Indeed between these two points are situated the famous Farne Islands, the grandest and most imposing haunt of sea-birds round the entire English coast. On the mainland, nearly opposite to the Farne Islands, there is a long reach of sand dunes between the sea and the cultivated land, and these are frequented by at least one bird of exceptional interest. We may dismiss the Gulls that beat along in restless flight, and pay small attention to the Common Buntings that here justify their name, and for the time being confine our observations to the Sheldrakes that haunt this part of the coast. These sand dunes are an ideal locality for such a bird. Should the tide chance to be out, more likely than not this species will be detected upon them. It is a shy and wary fowl, though, and we need the aid of our powerful binocular to bring it within range of much detailed scrutiny. This Duck is to our mind quite the handsomest of its family in our islands, a combination of very pronounced black, white, and chestnut, with a dash of crimson and pink on bill and legs thrown in. You may watch it thus through your glass walking in a somewhat stately way, not waddling like a more typical Duck; but should you attempt a much nearer scrutiny the big bird unfolds its broad party-coloured wings and seeks a more secluded resting-place. Should the time be high-water, and the blue sparkling sea reaches almost up to the links, most probably a few Sheldrakes will be observed flying over the water up or down the coast. The flight is very characteristic, unlike that of the true Ducks, more like that of a Goose or a Swan, the wings moved up and down with slow measured strokes, so very different from the rapid beats of the bird’s Anatine relations. In this species the sexes are very similar in colour; indeed the chief external difference is the absence of the frontal shield from the female. Following the almost universal law, this conspicuous hen bird takes good care to conceal herself from enemies during the critical period of incubation, and lays her eggs at the end of a long and often winding burrow in the sand. In this particular district a rabbit hole is almost invariably selected, and some of the chosen burrows are so intricate that we may spend hours in the fruitless search for the exact position of the nest. This is usually made at the end of the burrow, and consists in the first place of a handful of dry grass—possibly a rabbit’s old abode; but as the creamy-white and fragile eggs accumulate (to the number of a dozen or sometimes more) the old birds surround them with down of exquisite softness and lavender-gray in colour. As is generally the case where both sexes are showy, and incubate in covered or concealed nests, the male bird takes his due share in the duty of hatching; but so careful are the birds in relieving each other—usually at morning and evening—that they seldom betray the whereabouts of the nest. The young birds, soon after being hatched, quit the burrow and betake themselves in their parents' company to the sea-shore. In this locality the bird is certainly becoming rarer owing to the way the young are captured and the eggs taken by fishermen and others. We once inspected an entire brood of a dozen ducklings that a fisher lad was rearing at Seahouses. He had them confined in a small pen and fed them chiefly upon sand-hoppers, which they were marvellously adept at capturing as he threw them down one by one amongst the downy little creatures. From Holy Island right round to the Forth, this Duck may be met with breeding, preferring in the latter locality the numerous sandy islets. Round the coasts of Scotland it becomes even more numerous and widely dispersed.

We will now retrace our steps to the Farne Islands and make a brief inspection of such birds that build their nests on the flat surface, reserving the cliff-haunting species for our next chapter. Repeated visits to these islands only increase their charm. A single visit is bewildering, renewed acquaintance impresses their wonders upon us and enables us fully to realize the grandeur of the scene and more completely to enjoy the avine wonders of the place. Apart from their bird-life, there is a strong human interest clinging to them, for Grace Darling casts a halo of romance around them by her daring deed long years ago, and which is still a stock subject for conversation up and down the coast. These rocky islands lying a few miles off the shore are nowadays almost a perfect sanctuary for sea-birds. This was not always so; for we can recall the time when the eggs especially were gathered in such a wholesale way that the wonder is there were any sea-birds left there. Strict protection is now the rule, and visitors are generally kept under such close supervision that the lifting of an egg without permission is almost an impossibility. There are, of course, a good many birds on and off these islands at all times of the year; now and then, especially in winter or during migration time, a rare straggler of some non-indigenous British species appears, and the light-keepers have repeatedly assured us that at intervals the sea around them during winter often swarms with Ducks and other northern birds. It is, however, in spring and summer that the islands become crowded with their normal inhabitants—Gulls, Terns, Eider Ducks, Cormorants, Ringed Plovers, Oyster-catchers, Guillemots, and Puffins—assembled there for the express purpose of rearing their young. One of the most characteristic birds of the islands is the Lesser Black-backed Gull—in fact the entire group may be regarded as one vast colony of this species, and perhaps the most densely populated one throughout the length and breadth of the British archipelago. These birds return to the islands—coming from the south from many parts of the German Ocean and the English Channel—early in spring, but the exact date varies a good deal in different years. In some seasons they return en masse as early as from the middle to the end of March; in other seasons not before the middle of April. A month later they are engaged in nesting duties. The date of breeding, however, varies little, and the eggs are invariably laid during May and June. On approaching some of the islands, the first impression is that this Gull monopolizes the whole of the ground, as it occurs in such vast abundance. The air seems full of them, the ground and bare rocks are crowded; and as our boat finally grates against the rough beach and we eagerly jump ashore all becomes noisy excitement—a perfect babel of protesting cries that is persistently kept up until we leave the place. We shall find that the nests vary a good deal in size, some being little more than hollows trampled out amongst the dense beds of campion and thrift, others more substantial and composed of pieces of turf, sea-weed, stalks of herbage and grass. The eggs are three or four in number, and subject to an incredible amount of variation in colour—greens, olives, browns, and grays of almost every possible shade representing the shell tints; browns and grays the markings, which take the form of round spots, blotches, streaks, either evenly distributed over most of the surface, scattered here and there, or forming zones round the end. Right through the summer these Gulls are employed in rearing their young, the period being unusually prolonged because so many of the first clutches of eggs are taken for culinary and other purposes. During the latter part of August and throughout September these Gulls and their young leave the islands and work their way southwards, scattering far and wide over the seas, following the shoals of herrings and sprats and other fish, some of them possibly wandering as far as the Spanish and north-west African coasts. A few Herring Gulls breed here and there among the other species, but this bird has very few large colonies in the northern shires. This is the one species of Gull that breeds on the south coast of Devon, and there its colonies are larger than any we have visited elsewhere in the British Islands. Scattered pairs, however, may be met with here and there along the coasts, and in some few inland spots throughout the northern shires. The Kittiwake also breeds in numbers at the Farnes, but we will reserve our notice of it for a later chapter.

The Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Next to the Lesser Black-backed Gull the Terns are certainly the most numerous and most interesting birds. Three out of the five British species return each spring to these famous islands to breed. The Roseate Tern, rarest of all the indigenous species, used formerly to breed here, but it eventually became extinct, although from time to time an odd pair or so are observed in their old-time haunts, so that the bird may re-establish itself in them, more especially as the sea-birds are now so strictly preserved there. The three regular breeding species are the Sandwich Tern, the Common Tern, and the Arctic Tern. All are summer migrants only to the British Islands. The Sandwich Tern, by far the largest of the three species, arrives at the islands during the last half of April, as a rule, but some seasons is not seen until the beginning of May. There is much in their early movements that reminds us of the actions of Rooks just previous to nesting. Every morning for perhaps a month after their arrival they assemble at the islands and stay for a short time, previous to dispersing over the surrounding sea to search for food, lingering longer and longer as the actual breeding time approaches, until they finally decide upon a spot to nest, and about a week after this the first eggs are laid. The laying season lasts a month, say from the middle of May until the middle of June. The earliest young may be remarked about the latter date, and from that time onwards rapidly increase in numbers from day to day. July is a busy month indeed for the parent birds. In exceptionally early seasons some of the young are able to fly by the beginning of August, and by the end of the month the birds quit the breeding-place, and finally desert the vicinity of the islands during the first week in September. Sometimes the autumn exodus is made, but the birds return in a day or so and linger about the islands before finally taking their departure south. The Sandwich Terns do not always breed in exactly the same spot every season. Sometimes an exceptionally high spring-tide will wash away most of the eggs, and then the poor birds move to another situation, perhaps to another island, and try again. This happened in the summer of 1883, and we saw the beach literally strewn with broken egg-shells, the sole remains of the wrecked colony. On our way from the beach towards the barer rising ground in the centre, where the main colony chances to be established, we pass many outlying nests, not only of this Tern, but of Gulls and Eiders. Birds are rising from all parts of the ground, and gradually congregating into a dense bewildering, drifting, noisy throng above our heads. At last we reach the colony of Sandwich Terns, and there we find for an area of many square yards the ground literally covered so closely with eggs that to walk amongst them without breaking them is almost an impossible feat, not only because the nests are but a few feet apart, but because the eggs themselves so closely resemble the ground in colour. The nests are slight enough, many of them nothing but hollows in the ground, some of them with a few bits of weed and grass loosely arranged, and chiefly round the margin. The two, or less frequently three, eggs are very beautiful objects, and vary enormously in the character of the markings. The ground colour may be any shade between rich buff and dull white; the markings are brown of many shades, and ink-gray. These latter vary considerably in shape and size, from large irregular blotches that conceal nearly a third of the shell to splashes, spots, and streaks, sometimes distributed over the entire surface, or in zones, or irregularly here and there. During the whole period of our stay the birds remain above us, fluttering and gliding to and fro uttering shrill notes of alarm.

The Arctic Tern, on an average, arrives later than the preceding species, generally about the first week in May, sometimes not before the third week in that month. A week or so elapses before the birds finally settle down to nesting duties, so that the eggs are seldom laid before June, exceptionally during the last few days of May. As a rule the breeding season is over by August, and the bulk of the birds quit the islands in the first week of September. In later seasons they may not leave until the end of that month, and a few in rare instances linger into October. The eggs are generally laid close to the water’s edge, and so far as our experience extends (and that is a rather wide one, for we have visited colonies in many parts of the British area) no nest is ever made for their reception. They are placed upon the bare sand and shingle, and upon the line of rubbish that marks the limit of the highest water-mark. Two or three eggs are laid for a clutch, varying from buff to olive and pale-green in ground colour, heavily spotted and blotched with brown of many shades, and gray. Lastly, we have the Common Tern, a bird that arrives and departs at about the same dates as the preceding species. We generally found the breeding-places of this Tern at a greater distance from the water than those of the Arctic Tern, amongst the grass and sea campion on the higher parts of the island. As our boat approaches the nursery of this Tern, numbers of birds may be seen squatting on the beach or swimming about in the rock pools. These are the first to take alarm, and as we finally land others rise from the island, and the air is soon filled with screaming birds. The colony is established on some rising bare ground, and the eggs are laid in scanty nests—hollows lined with bits of grass and stalks of marine plants. The eggs, two or three in number, very closely resemble those of the Arctic Tern, but are larger, rounder, and never appear to have any olive or green tint on the shell.

The Eider Duck.

Many pairs of Eider Ducks also breed upon the Farne Islands, placing their nests amongst the campion and long grass, in crevices of the lichen-covered rocks, or in holes in the ruins that are to be found on some of the islets. These Eiders are remarkably tame, and allow the observer to watch them as they brood over their eggs. The male birds, however, are much shyer, and never come near the nests at all, spending most of their time upon the sea off the islands. Then the Ringed Plover breeds here in small numbers, also the Oyster-catcher (a noisy, shy bird enough), and not a few Rock Pipits. Upon an outlying reef the Cormorants have their colony—a dirty, evil-smelling spot, which apparently by common consent is shunned by all the other species. This islet is low, not more than a dozen feet above the sea in its highest part, sloping to the water’s edge on one side. Where the huge nests of the Cormorants are built there is scarcely a trace of any vegetation; everything is more or less covered with droppings, and decaying fish are strewn here and there—the whole place smelling most offensively on a calm hot day. These nests are made of sea-weed, stalks of marine plants and turf, and many are lined with green herbage. The three or four long oval eggs are pale-green, but so thickly coated with lime and dirt that all trace of this is hidden until they are washed and well scraped.