Birds in Flight

by W. P. Pycraft

Let us turn now, for a little while, from moor and wood and fen, to the sea-shore, and, for choice, to a rock-bound coast with towering cliffs. Here you will find a number of species which will never be found inland. They love the sea, whether it be shimmering in the sun of a blazing June day, smooth as a millpond, or in a fury of thundering billows, lashed by a roaring gale in bleak December. The bottle-green shag is one of these. You cannot mistake him. Perched on a rock he sits upright, and, in the spring, wears a crest upon his head. On the water he floats with the body well down, and every few moments disappears with a spring into the depths, for his never-ending meal of fish and crabs. His flight, just above the water, is strong and rapid. His cousin, the cormorant, is a conspicuously larger bird, with a bronze-coloured plumage. In the breeding season his head has a hoary appearance, due to the presence of numerous filamentous feathers, known as “filoplumes”; while the throat is white, and there is a large white patch on the thigh. He has a habit, after a full meal, of sitting on some convenient perch with wings spread wide open and open-mouthed, apparently as an aid to digestion. But he is by no means so wedded to the sea as the shag. Rivers and inland waters will serve him as well as the sea.

1. Partridge.	2. Gannet.
3. Whitethroat.	4. Red-backed Shrike.
5. Magpie.	6. Goldfinch.
7. Great Crested Grebe.	8. Buzzard.
9. Puffin.	10. Grey Wagtail.

The gannet, though very nearly related to the cormorant, is a bird of very different habits and appearance. When adult it is snow white in plumage, with blue beak and feet, and can be mistaken for no other bird. Its peculiar mode of fishing was described in [Chapter II].

Finally, there are two most interesting features of these birds which are worth remembering. To wit, the toes are all enclosed within one web, and they have no nostrils, and but the merest apology for a tongue.

And now we come to the petrels. These are for the most part nocturnal birds, spending the day in burrows. They would, therefore, find no place in these pages but for the fact that one may occasionally be seen at sea when one is fishing off the shore in a boat. The commonest is that known as the Manx shearwater. Rather larger than a pigeon, it may be distinguished by its flight, which is rapid; the wings presenting periods of rapid quivering, alternating with long sailing with fixed, widely spread, narrow pinions. At one moment one sees only the deep black of the back, the next the pure white of the under parts as the birds turn now this way, now that, holding the outstretched wings at right angles to the surface during the turn, so that one wing barely misses the waves, while the other points skywards.

Sometimes too, one may see the little “Mother Carey’s Chicken.” A tiny sprite sooty-black in colour, and with a white rump patch, it often flies so close to the water that it is able to patter along the surface with its feet, as it flies.

The fulmar petrel is indeed a child of the sea, for, except in the breeding season, it never comes to land. But at sea you may have the good fortune to see it off the east coast of Great Britain, and the north and west of Ireland—and in winter off the south and west coasts of England. Though in coloration resembling a common gull, it may always be distinguished, when on the wing, by its narrow wings, curved like a bow—not sharply angled as those of a gull, and the primaries are not black-tipped. Its flight is strong and powerful: slow wing-beats alternating with long glides. On far St. Kilda, in the breeding season, you may find them in great hosts. For some unexplained reason they are increasing in numbers, and may now also be found breeding in the Shetlands, Hebrides, and Orkneys.

Some who read these pages may, perchance, be stimulated by a desire to enlarge their acquaintance with our sea-birds by spending a day at sea in a small row-boat. For choice, one of the larger breeding-stations should be visited. Horn Head, Donegal; St. Kilda, The Scilly Islands, the Bempton cliffs, Yorkshire; The Farne Islands, Fowlsheugh, Stonehaven; the Orkneys, the Shetlands, or the Hebrides, are all renowned resorts. Here are thrilling sights indeed. Guillemots, razor-bills, and puffins are congregated in swarms, which must be seen to be believed. Few birds are more easy to tell at sight as they scuttle past one on the way down to the water from the cliffs, or returning laden with food for their young. The puffin is easily the most conspicuous, since he flies with his little yellow legs stuck out on each side of his apology for a tail. And for a further token there is his great red and yellow beak. The guillemot has a sooty brown head and neck—in his breeding dress—slate-grey back and white under parts, and a pointed beak; while the razor-bill, similarly coloured, is to be distinguished by the narrow white lines down his highly compressed beak. By good fortune, the white-winged black guillemot may be found among the host. His white wings contrasting with the black plumage of the rest of the body, and his red legs, suffice to identify him.