Bird Watching

by Edmund Selous

And bring all heaven before our eyes."

It was some little time before I could be quite sure to what bird this strange note belonged. It seemed too poetical for a duck, though, indeed, an eider-duck is the poetry of the family. Also, it was difficult to locate, seeming to bear but little relation to the place or distance at which it was uttered. But I soon found that whenever there were eider-ducks I heard the note, whereas I never did when they were nowhere about. At last—quite close in a little bay, as though they had come there to show me—I "tore out the heart of their mystery." It was a lovely sight. Even the female eider-duck, sober brown though she be, has a most pleasing appearance, but the male bird is beauteous indeed. In the pure white and deep, rich black of his plumage he looks, at first, as though clothed all in velvet and snow. There are, however, the green feathers on the back of the head and neck, which do not look like feathers at all, but rather a delicate wash of colour, or as though some thin, glazed material—some finest-made green silk handkerchief—had been tied round his head with a view to health by the female members of his family. And although at first, with the exception of this green tint, all that is not the richest velvet black looks purest white, the eye through the glasses, growing more and more delighted, notices soon a still more delicate wash of green about the upper parts of the neck, and of delicate, very delicate, buff on the full rounded breast just where it meets the water. These glorified males—there were a dozen of them, perhaps, to some six or seven females—swam closely about the latter, but more in attendance upon than as actually pursuing them; for the females seemed themselves almost as active agents in the sport of being wooed as were their lovers in wooing them. The actions were as follows:—The male bird first dipped down his head till his beak just touched the water, then raised it again in a constrained and tense manner—the curious rigid action so frequent in the nuptial antics of birds—at the same time uttering that strange, haunting note. The air became filled with it, every moment one or other of the birds—sometimes several together—with upturned bill would softly laugh or exclaim, and whilst the males did this, the females, turning excitedly, and with little eager demonstrations from one to another of them, kept lowering and extending forwards the head and neck in the direction of each in turn.

As there were a good many females in this "reunion," the numbers of the males about any one of them at one time was not great. Some of them were attended by only one cavalier or left quite lonely for a time—but all kept shifting and changing. The birds kept always swimming on, and were now all together, now scattered over a considerable surface of water. Sometimes two males would court one hen, who would then often demonstrate between them in the way I have described. Often, however, the male birds are in excess of the females, and sometimes there will be only one female to a number of males, who then press so closely about her that they may almost be said to mob her, though in a very polite manner. There are then frequent combats between the males, one making every now and again a sudden dash through the water at another, and seizing or endeavouring to seize him by the head or scruff of the neck. The two then struggle together till they both sink or dive under the water. Shortly afterwards they emerge separately, and the combat is over for the time. During, if not as a part of, these nuptial proceedings, the birds of both sexes will occasionally rise in the water and give their wings a brisk flapping. They may also occasionally dive as a mere relaxation, or to give vent to their feelings, at least so it appeared to me.

The female eider-duck—as far as I could observe—does not utter the curious note, but only a deep quacking one, with which she calls to her the male birds. It appeared to me that she would sometimes show a preference for one male over another, and also (though of this I cannot be so sure), a power of dismissing birds from her. But if she really possesses such a power, she cannot very well assert it when closely pressed upon by a crowd of admirers. I noticed, too, and thought it curious, that a female would often approach a male bird with her head and neck laid flat along the water as though in a very "coming-on disposition," and that the male bird declined her advances. This, taken in conjunction with the actions of the females when courted by the males, appears to me to raise a doubt as to the universal application of the law that throughout nature the male, in courtship, is eager and the female coy. Here, to all appearance, courtship was proceeding, and the birds had not yet mated. The female eider-ducks, however—at any rate some of them—appeared to be anything but coy. As time went on and the birds became paired this curious note of the males became less and less frequent, and at last ceased, a proof, I think, that the note itself is of a nuptial character, and also that the birds at the time they kept uttering it were seeking their mates.

I regret that I was not able to observe the further breeding or nesting habits of these interesting birds. A few of the females may have laid before I left the island, but the greater number were still on the water. One day I put one up from the heather, upon which I lay down and waited. Soon a pair of them—both females—flew round me and alighted together not far off. Both then lay or crouched in the heather at a few yards from each other. Later, whilst watching from the coast, I saw two female eiders walking side by side at a slight distance apart. At intervals they would pause, stand or sit for a little, and again jog on together. These birds must, I think, have been selecting a place in which to lay their eggs, and if so, it would seem that they like to do this in pairs. I also saw a male eider-duck sitting for a considerable time amidst the heather right away from the sea. It is, of course, impossible to mistake the sexes after the males have assumed their adult plumage, and, moreover, this bird subsequently flew down into the little bay just beneath me. I say this because it is authoritatively stated that the male eider-duck never goes near the nest. It is probable that a week or so later this bird could not have sat where he was without being near to a nest at any rate; and, moreover, what should take the male bird from the sea, or its immediate coast, at all, if it were not some impulse appropriate to the season? This and a statement made to me by a native in regard to this point, which went still further against authority, makes me wish that I had been able to see a little more. As it is, I have only a right to ask with regard to this one male eider-duck, "Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere?"

It is difficult to tire of watching these birds, ducks, yet so wonderfully marine. The freedom of the sea is upon them, far more than Aphrodite they might have sprung from its foam—it is of the male with his snowy breast that one thinks this. One cannot see them and think of a pond or a river—yet, always, they are so palpably ducks. It is delicious to see them heave with the swell of the wave against some low sloping rock—lapping it like the water itself—and then remain upon it, standing or sitting—living jetsam that the sea has cast up. They ride like corks on the water, they are the arch of each wave and the dimple of every ripple.

Eider-ducks feed by diving to the bottom of the sea off the rocks where it is shallow, and getting there what is palatable. Probably this is, in most cases, eaten under water, but whilst, as a rule, emerging empty-mouthed, they occasionally bring up something in their bill, and dispose of it floating on the surface. In one case this was, I think, a crab; in another, some kind of shell-fish. Their dive is a sudden dip down, and in the act of it they open the wings, which they use under water, as can be plainly seen for a little way below the surface. This opening of the wings in the moment of diving is, I believe, a sure sign that they are used as fins or flippers under water, and that the feet play little or no part.

Birds, amongst others, that dive in this way are—to begin with—the black guillemot.

"Looking down from the cliffs into the quiet pools and inlets, one can see these little birds—the dabchicks of the ocean—swimming under water and using their wings as paddles, perfectly well. Instantly on diving they become of a glaucous green colour, and are then no longer like things of this world, but fanciful merely, suggesting sprites, goblins, little subaqueous bottle imps, for their shape is like a fat-bodied bottle or flat flask. Great green bubbles they look like, and so too but—larger and still greener—do the eider-ducks." In their small size and rounded shape, in their deariness, their pretty little ways and actions, in everything, almost, these little black guillemots are the marine counterpart of the dabchick or little grebe. It is pretty to see them, a dozen or so together. They pursue each other under the water—in anger, I think, but it has the appearance of sport; it is a joyous anger. They seem all in a state of collective excitement, and out of this one will make a sudden dart at another, who dives, and the pursuit is then alternately under or on the water, and sometimes just skimming along it on the wing, exactly as dabchicks do. Yet the black guillemot is a fair flier, having to ascend the precipices, and the dabchick too, for the matter of that, can if he chooses rise into the air and fly seriously. There are three modes of delivering the attack in fighting. In the first two the one bird either just darts on the other when quite near, in which case there may be a slight scuffle before either or both disappear, or flies at him over the water from a greater or lesser distance and often very nearly gets hold of him, but never quite. Invariably the other is down in time, if it be only the justest of justs. The third plan, which is the most rusé, is for the attacking bird to dive whilst yet some way off, and, coming up beneath his "objective," to spear up at him with his bill. And so nicely does he judge his distance that he always does come up exactly where the swimming bird was,—not is, for this one is as invariably gone. Yet this plan must sometimes be successful, though I did not see a case in which it was. At least, I judge so by the precipitation with which the bird on the water when he saw the other one dive—as he always did, and divined his intention—flew up and off to some distance. In just the same way have I seen the great crested grebe rise up and fly far over the glassy waters of the sun-bathed lake—but still more precipitately, and, indeed, in disorder, for he rose not alone from the surface but also from the well-aimed spear-point of his successfully-lunging antagonist. Whether the little dabchicks also, as well as the crested grebes, attack each other in this manner, I cannot from observations say, but from the relationship it would seem probable.