Cruise of the 'Alert' / Four Years in Patagonian, Polynesian, and Mascarene Waters (1878-82)

by R. W. Coppinger

I was surprised to see how neatly they alighted on the branches. There was none of the awkward shuffling motion of wings and feet which they exhibit when alighting on the ground or on the water; but, on the contrary, each fresh arrival soared on to its perching place as smoothly and cleverly as a hawk, and grasped the branch firmly with its claws. At another tree rookery in Swallow Bay I noticed that when some of the birds on flying in observed my presence, they would rise high above the tree, and remain soaring around in circles till I had gone away. The method of soaring was to all appearance as smooth, steady, and devoid of effort as that of a vulture. And yet the cormorant is a heavy short-winged bird, that rises from the ground with difficulty, and whose ordinary method of flight is most laborious.

The handsomest bird in this region is the kingfisher (Ceryle stellata). It is commonly to be seen perched on some withered branches overhanging the water, where it will remain in a huddled-up sleeping attitude, its head turned sideways, but with an eye all the time fixed intently on the water beneath, until it espies a fish, when it drops like a stone, cleaving the water with a short sharp splash, and a moment afterwards emerges with an upward impulse, which raises it clear of the water, and enables it to fly away at once without any preliminary shaking or fluttering. It is an exceedingly unsuspicious and fearless bird, and when perched on its place of observation, will often allow one in a boat to approach within arm's reach of it. Mossy banks overhanging low sea cliffs are its usual nesting places, and there it excavates a tunnel through the soft moss and turfy soil, and at a distance of more than two feet from the aperture forms its nest.

There is a very peculiar and constant feature in the scenery of the woodlands about the summits of the low hills, which has given rise to much speculation amongst us. It is that many of the rounded bosses of syenite rock, which project for a few feet above the level of the swampy land, exhibit on their highest parts isolated mossy tufts, which look at a little distance like small piles of rubbish placed artificially in prominent places as landmarks, or like the marks which mountain climbers are so fond of setting up on rocky pinnacles as records of their feats. The usual shape is that of a cylinder about eighteen inches high and ten inches in diameter, with a rounded top; and it adheres to the rock by a well-defined base of matted fibres. It is composed of a very compact moss (Tetraplodon mnioides), which is of a rich green colour on the summit of the tuft when it is in a flourishing condition, and whose decaying remains, converted into a peaty mould entangled in a fibrous network of roots, form the body and base of the tuft. When this moss is in fruit, its long spore-bearing stalks, which rise to a height of three inches above its surface, are of a dark-red colour where they emerge from the green surface, this colour gradually changing into a beautiful golden-yellow above, where the spore-cases are supported. It is then an exceedingly pretty object. If one of these tufts be torn away from its rocky foundation, which is very easily done, and is a most tempting work of destruction, a white scar is left on the rock which will catch the eye at the distance of a mile, and which strongly resembles the small white-washed marks set up on the coasts by our surveyors for shooting theodolite angles at. Now the question is, why does the moss establish itself in this peculiar position, on the otherwise bare and exposed rock? It is all the same whether the rock be dome-shaped, as it most commonly is on the low hill-tops, or pyramidal, or wedge-shaped, the tuft—if there is one present—is invariably to be found perched on the highest part of it. I can only attribute this to the peculiar habit of growth of the moss, adapting it specially to this shape and this situation; a situation to which moreover it gives a decided preference, for I have not observed it growing elsewhere. Sometimes on climbing a rocky mountain hereabouts, one sees from afar off one of these tufts perched on a commanding pinnacle at the summit; then one thinks that surely this must be a cairn erected by some desolate traveller, and it is only on approaching closely that the delusion vanishes. It will then, perhaps, be found that the tuft stands alone, surrounded in all directions by a sloping surface of bare rock which isolates it by a radius of forty yards from all other vegetation; the little tuft bearing itself up bravely as if in obstinate defiance of the wind and rain, which one is at first inclined to think must have swept away an old uniform mantle of vegetation from the rocky surface, leaving the mossy tuft on the summit the sole survivor.

There is another peculiar form of vegetable growth which is a characteristic of the landscape in certain parts of this region, and which I have not noticed to the same extent elsewhere. It is this. Whenever a mass of bushes happens to be exposed to the prevailing westerly wind, as in the case of promontories which receive the unbroken blast on one of their sides, or of exposed islets in mid-channel, it will be seen that the bushes not only lean away permanently from the direction of the prevailing wind (as is usual everywhere), but that their summits are cut off evenly to a common plane which slopes gently upwards, and thus presents as trim an appearance as if the bushes had been carefully clipped to that shape with a gardening shears. Our surveying parties have sometimes been disappointed at finding that a headland, which seemed from a short distance to be covered with an inviting mantle of short grass, and which therefore looked a convenient place on which to establish an observing station, was in reality defended by a dense growth of bushes, which exhibited the phenomenon in question, and over, under, or through which it was almost impossible to get. Sometimes one could get over these bushes by lying down at full length and rolling sideways down the incline; but this method was objectionable, for it was sometimes ten or fifteen feet from the surface to the hard ground beneath. The reason of this curious growth is obvious enough. Each aspiring leafy twig that happens by a too luxuriant growth to shoot above its fellows, is cut down by the relentless blast before it can acquire strength enough to make good its footing; and those branches alone survive in the struggle which grow uniformly with their neighbours, and which thus present a sufficiently compact surface to withstand the blighting influence of the westerly gales.

One day, when we were lying at our old anchorage in Tom Bay, I saw a cormorant rise to the surface with a large fish in its mouth, which, for several minutes, it vainly attempted to swallow. I noticed it chucking the fish about until it had got hold of it by the head, but even then it seemed unable to "strike down" the savoury morsel. A flock of dominican gulls now appeared on the scene, and seeing the state of affairs at once swooped down on the unlucky cormorant, but the wily bird discomfited them by diving and carrying the fish with it. It was now most ludicrous to witness the disappointed appearance of the gulls, as they sat in a group on the water looking foolishly about, and apparently overcome with grief at their inability to follow up the chase by diving. After an interval of about half-a-minute the cormorant reappeared some distance off with the fish still in its mouth, and now one of the gulls succeeded at last in snatching the fish from its grasp, and flew away with it rapidly up a long winding arm of the sea. At this critical moment a skua (Stercorarius chilensis), hove in sight, and gave chase to the fugitive gull, until, unfortunately, a turn in the creek concealed both birds from our sight, but left us to safely conjecture that the last comer had ultimately the satisfaction of consuming the wretched fish.

I have often wondered at the apparently stupid manner in which long files of cormorants will continue on their course over the surface of the water without deviating so as to avoid a dangerous locality until they are close to the place or object to be avoided. Many persons are doubtless familiar with the appearance of these birds as they fly towards a boat which happens to lie in their route, and may remember the startled way in which, when about twenty or thirty yards off, they will alter their course with a vigorous swish of the tail and sheer off confusedly from the danger. Again, how eager they are to take advantage of the (probably) acuter vision of terns and gulls, when they observe that either of the latter have discovered a shoal of fish. Is it not therefore probable that cormorants are naturally short-sighted?—a disadvantage for which they are amply compensated by their superior diving powers.

The required survey of the Trinidad Channel was completed by the middle of the month of December; but before leaving this part of the coast, one day was devoted to an exploration of the "Brazo del Norte," a sound running in a northerly direction from the Trinidad Channel, and piercing the so-called Wellington Island. We got under way from Tom Bay early in the morning, and steaming across the Trinidad Channel, entered "Brazo del Norte," and explored it to a distance of twenty-six miles from the entrance. We were then obliged to turn back in order to reach Tom Bay before nightfall. It was a great pity that time did not permit us to trace this magnificent Sound to its northern extremity; for so far as we could judge there seemed every probability of its communicating directly with the Fallos Channel, which is known to extend southwards from the Gulf of Peñas to within a few miles of the place where we turned back. In this event it would prove a good sheltered route for vessels using the Straits of Magellan, and if free from the objectionable restrictions which close the Messier Channel route to large steamers, would be used not only in preference to it but to Trinidad Channel itself, whose approach from seaward is at least uninviting, if not hazardous.

On leaving Tom Bay we moved gradually down the Concepcion and Inocentes Channels, always anchoring for the night, and sometimes stopping for a day or two in order to examine some new port.

At Latitude Cove a black-necked swan (Cygnus nigricollis)—besides which only one other was ever seen by us in the western channels—was shot. It proved to be a male bird, weighing only seven pounds, and was in poor condition, having strayed far from its own happy hunting grounds among the lagoons of central Patagonia.

We anchored at Sandy Point in the Strait of Magellan on the 2nd January, and remained there eleven days in order to provision the ship, and to give the crew a change of air.