The Shetland Isles abound with several kinds of birds, as curlews, snipes, grouse, green plovers, redshanks, herons, and other waders. The short-eared owl is also frequently seen here, and makes its nest on the ground. This species never flies, like other owls, in search of prey, but sits quiet on an eminence, watching like a cat the appearance of mice or other vermin. No partridges are found in these Isles, and many of the other birds migrate to a warmer clime on the approach of winter.
The lofty cliffs impending over the ocean, are the haunts of eagles, falcons, ravens, hawks, hooded crows, &c. The Erne-eagles, which are very ravenous, and destructive among the lambs, possess the most exalted precipices, and, like the falcons, will not admit of any society. This, Pliny, in his Hist. Nat. lib. 10. c. 3. beautifully expresses:— “Unum par Aquilarum magno ad populandum tractu, ut satietur, indiget; determinant ergo spatia nec in proximo prædantur.”
A premium of three shillings and fourpence is obtained for killing one of these eagles; and smaller premiums are given for killing less destructive birds.
Here are also seen grey linnets, larks, sparrows, red-breasts, wrens, landrails, and stone chatters. The tame fowl are, geese, ducks, pigeons, dung-hill fowl, and some turkeys.
To the winding bays resort swans, dunter, clack, and soland geese; teal, Greenland doves, shearwaters, kittiweaks, (which are amazingly numerous,) different kinds of gulls, cormorants, and other aquatic birds.
In the islands of Unst and Foula is bred a bird of the web-footed kind, called Skua, about two feet long, having its claws sharp, strong, and hooked, like those of a kite. It preys on the lesser water fowl, like a rapacious land bird, and is so remarkably courageous and fierce in defending its young, that it will even repel the eagle from its haunts. Some birds are driven here by the frost from the inclement north, and pass their winter in the Shetland bays; whilst others, (mostly of the palmated kind,) retire in the spring to more southern latitudes. The guillemot remains in these islands till November.
This is a very pretty bird, about one foot and a half long. Its bill is about three inches long; head, neck, back, wings, and tail of a deep mouse colour. Its breast and belly milk white. There is another bird, called the stormy petrel, of a black and white colour, with a black bill much hooked at the end. It breeds commonly among the loose stones on the shore; and, bounding into the water, often affrights the superstitious fishermen, who take it to be an omen of some impending disaster. These birds are found at all distances from land, in all parts of the Atlantic, from Great Britain to the coast of North America; and follow ships in great flocks. On account of their clamour at night (being silent through the day) they are hated by sailors, who (imagining they forbode a storm) call them witches.
Our sailors shot many of these birds, but that had not much effect in making the others keep a more respectful distance.
Many of the inhabitants of these islands feed, during the season, on the eggs and young of wild birds. These they procure in a very dangerous manner from cliffs, in some places from sixty to one hundred fathoms high. The attempt is mostly made from above. The dauntless adventurer descends by a rope made either of straw or hog’s bristles, and held by a person at the top. Oftentimes the rope breaks, and the unhappy fowler is either dashed to pieces or drowned. The necessity of shifting the rope from place to place, with the impending weight of the fowler and his prey, renders the attempt much more hazardous.