Bird studies with a camera

by Frank M. Chapman

79. Young Guillemots.

In the meantime we were endeavoring to make some arrangements for our voyage to the Rock, which on clear days could be seen from the tops of the higher hills—a hazy dot in the sea. Imagination peopled the view with Cartier, Audubon, and his successors, and I could scarcely believe that the scene of the wonders they had described was actually on my horizon. But, although only twenty miles away, Bird Rock now seemed more distant than before we had taken the first step of our journey. This in a measure is due to the uncertainty of gulf weather, the strong tides, the sudden and severe squalls, the prevalence of fogs, and the surprising rapidity with which the latter change a sunlit horizon to closely crowding gray walls—all of which make navigation in these waters more than usually dangerous. Furthermore, it is to be remembered that Bird Rock is not a port in which one could seek safety from a storm, but a spot to be approached only in the calmest weather. One might therefore start for the Rock under the most favorable conditions, be caught in a squall and, as a result, find one’s self at sea with the recently desired haven changed to an element of danger.

With the Rock glimmering in the sunlight and apparently almost within reach, it was not easy to believe tales of disaster which had befallen those who in small boats had attempted to reach it, and I was more impressed with its inaccessibility by the fact that only one of the many fishermen with whom I talked, had ever landed on this inhospitable resort of sea birds.

This man proved a friend in need—one Captain Hubbard Taker, of the thirty-ton schooner Sea Gem. I commend him to every visitor to the Magdalens as a man and a sailor. It was when the difficulties of reaching the Rock by small boat appeared insurmountable that Captain Taker returned from a fishing trip to the Labrador coast. He proved to be one of those rare but exceedingly satisfactory individuals with whom anything is possible, or at least who believes it is until the contrary is shown. Could he take us to Bird Rock? “Why, of course; and whenever you are ready.” So without delay we boarded the Sea Gem.

BIRD ROCK

If as a result of a conference between the birds and the Audubon Society a home were to be selected which should prove a secure retreat for certain of the feathered kind, I imagine that Bird Rock, in its primal condition, would have admirably filled the requirements set forth by both conferees.

With precipitous, rocky walls weathered into innumerable ledges, shelves, and crevices—all fit nesting sites—one might think of it as a colossal lodging house for the countless sea-bird tenants who find here not only a suitable place for the reproduction of their young, but in the surrounding waters an abundant and unfailing supply of food. Add to these conditions the Rock’s isolation and inaccessibility, its shoreless outline, and the difficulty with which it may be ascended, and we have indeed an ideal refuge for sea fowl, one in which, unless they were subjected to special persecution, they might have continued to exist for centuries, had not the transforming influences of civilization reached even to this isle of the sea.

Bird Rock is about fifty miles northwest of Cape Breton, the nearest mainland, and twelve east of Bryon Island, its next neighbor in the Magdalen group, to which it belongs. It is three hundred and fifty yards long, from fifty to one hundred and forty yards wide, and rises abruptly from the sea to a height of from eighty to one hundred and forty feet. Its outline, the nature of its base, sides, and summit are well indicated by the accompanying pictures.