Bird studies with a camera

by Frank M. Chapman

80. Bird Rock from the southwest; distant about one half a mile.

Three quarters of a mile northeast of Bird Rock, or Great Bird, as it is more specifically called, lies Little Bird, a red sandstone rock which at high tide, or from a distance, appears as two. The shallow water between Great and Little Birds suggests the possibility of a past connection and the probability that in some future geological age the waves will have completed their work of destruction, when both islands will have disappeared.

The history of these bird-inhabited islands is interesting, and gives us some information of the changes which man has wrought in their bird life. It begins with the account given by Jacques Cartier of his voyage to Canada in 1534. Of the Bird Rocks he wrote: “We came to three islands, two of which are as steep and upright as any wall, so that it was not possible to climb them, and between them is a little rock. These islands were as full of birds as any meadow is of grass, which there do make their nests, and in the greatest of them there was a great and infinite number of those that we called Margaulx, that are white and bigger than any geese, which were severed in one part. In the other were only Godetz, but toward the shore there were of those Godetz and great Apponatz, like to those of that island that we above have mentioned. We went down to the lowest part of the least island, where we killed above a thousand of those Godetz and Apponatz. We put into our boats as many as we pleased, for in less than one hour we might have filled thirty such boats of them. We named them the islands of the Margaulx.”

Concerning this quotation Mr. F. A. Lucas remarks (The Auk, v, 1888, page 129): “While this description, as well as the sentences which immediately precede it, contains some statements that apparently are at variance with existing facts, there is nevertheless good reason to believe that Cartier here refers to the Bird Rocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The birds called Margaulx, which bite even as dogs, were Gannets, whose descendants, in spite of centuries of persecution, are to be found to-day nesting where their ancestors did before them.

“That Cartier’s description does not accord with their present appearance is not to be wondered at. The material of which they are composed is of a soft, decomposing, red sandstone that succumbs so easily to the incessant attacks of the sea that Dr. Bryant’s description of them in 1860 does not hold good to-day. If, then, the Bird Rocks have undergone visible changes in twenty-five years, it is easy to imagine how great alterations the islets may have undergone during three and a quarter centuries.”

Examination of the narratives left by other early voyagers in this region would yield further information concerning the Rocks and the destruction of its inhabitants; but passing to records of greater ornithological value, we find that Audubon, whose energy in exploration no ornithologist has ever surpassed, was the first naturalist beholding Bird Rock to leave us a description of its wonders. It was during his cruise to Labrador in the schooner Ripley that he wrote in his journal, under date of June 14, 1833, the following graphic account of the day’s experiences:

81. North side of the Rock, west of the crane.

“About ten a speck rose on the horizon, which I was told was the Rock. We sailed well, the breeze increased fast, and we neared this object apace. At eleven I could distinguish its top plainly from the deck, and thought it covered with snow to the depth of several feet; this appearance existed on every portion of the flat, projecting shelves. Godwin said, with the coolness of a man who had visited this Rock for ten successive seasons, that what we saw was not snow, but Gannets. I rubbed my eyes, took my spyglass, and in an instant the strangest picture stood before me. They were birds we saw—a mass of birds of such a size as I never before cast my eyes on. The whole of my party stood astounded and amazed, and all came to the conclusion that such a sight was of itself sufficient to invite any one to come across the gulf to view it at this season. The nearer we approached the greater our surprise at the enormous number of these birds, all calmly seated on their eggs or newly hatched brood, their heads all turned to windward and toward us. The air above for a hundred yards, and for some distance around the whole Rock, was filled with Gannets on the wing, which, from our position, made it appear as if a heavy fall of snow was directly above us.” (Audubon and his Journals, i, p. 360.)