Chapter III.
Anecdotes and Notes.
The loneliness and wildness of most parts of Gairloch are of course highly favourable to the presence and observation of some of the rarer British birds and animals.
The list of Gairloch birds given further on reveals a curious fact, viz., that several kinds, such as the house-sparrow, bullfinch, blackbird, and red-shank, formerly unknown or rare in Gairloch, are now plentiful; whilst other birds, including the house-martin, skylark, and whimbrel, formerly abundant, are now scarce. No local causes for these changes can be suggested. There is no wholesale destruction of the smaller birds here as in France. What then can be the reason?
Dr Mackenzie has some interesting remarks on this point. Speaking of his young days (1815-1820) he writes as follows:—
"Now, gentle reader, please explain why, till we were men, no blackbird was ever heard of in Gairloch,—only heaps of ring-ouzels; not a sparrow nor a magpie (except one unfortunate who was shot, and report says cooked as game, at Kerrysdale, and pronounced excellent), no rooks nor wood-pigeons, tho' plenty blue-rocks, and for many years now these then strangers have found their way to the west. Indeed blackbirds are now in crowds there, and have so entirely superseded the ring-ouzel that one of these is quite a rarity. And please explain also why not only
'When I was young and was werry little,
The only steam came from the kettle,'
but why then no bird ever touched any fruit but cherries, while now no fruit, ripe or unripe, except black currants, is safe unless netted; the very pears, not full grown, being all pecked full of holes (or their mere skeletons hanging on the tree) by the blackbird pests, who, one might suppose, would die on the spot but for fruit that long ago not one of them would touch. Till three years ago I never dreamed of netting my morello cherry-trees. No blackbird till then would look at a morello, had I offered him £5. Now, unless netted, I need to use them before they are really ripe, or the black villains will eat them all up.
"When I was young house-swallows were legion. Now they are easily counted in the north. In our western church (Gairloch) then broken window-panes were too plenty, and the swallows' operations (building, feeding, and other arrangements), to the discomfort of those in the pews below the nests, I suppose I should admit interested us a good deal more than the preacher. Night-jars also then were very plenty, and one could hardly take an evening walk without seeing them flit in the dusk and light on the footpath before us, with their singular cat-purring song. I have often come on their extra-simple exposed nest in the heather."
The golden or black eagle may frequently be seen in Gairloch, soaring aloft in the sky. There is a general inclination now to preserve this noble denizen of the air. The eagle does comparatively little injury to game, but is accused of killing lambs and even sheep. The golden or black eagle is a size smaller than the erne or white-tailed eagle, which latter is also sometimes seen in Gairloch.