“Voracious from the billows’ breast
Marked far away, his destined feast.”
Its cry is a cruel, clear-ringing bark, very characteristic of the fierce baron of the cliffs, and when circling in company a pair can be heard yelping to each other until eye and ear together fail to catch sight or sound of them. When they are young the sea eagles, as yet unconscious perhaps of their birthright of supremacy, roam about among the moors and valleys, finding their food where they can, killing weakly lambs, or joining the raven in an ignoble meal on carrion.
Sometimes, strange to say, this creature of vast spaces and dizzy heights will nest in trees or even among reeds upon the ground. But its characteristic haunts are the wildest and most rugged sea-cliffs, and its hunting-grounds the rocky islets or tall upstanding bluffs and “peopled rocks” upon which the sea-folk cluster in their colonies.
“The high and frowning scaur, the haunt of sea-fowl”
Mackay.
“The pregnant cliffs, the sea-birds’ citadels”
Montgomery.