[Illustration: FIG. 108.--LESSER TERN. ¼ natural size.]
The little, or lesser tern, is a third less than the common species
in size, measuring only eight inches in length. The colour is nearly
the same in both birds, except that the under parts in the little tern
are pure white, and the bill orange--instead of coral-red. The voice
differs somewhat, being thinner and shriller in tone; otherwise the
language is the same. The flight is more wavering. This species is
much less numerous than the arctic and common terns; in its habits it
closely resembles them, breeding in communities, sometimes in company
with the other kinds. When breeding alongside of the common tern its
nests, as a rule, are placed a little apart and nearer to the water.
The nest is a slight depression in the loose sand and gravel, sometimes
with a few bents and fragments of dry seaweed for lining; the eggs are
two or three in number, of a light stone-colour, spotted with grey
and brown. In size and colour they closely resemble the eggs of the
ringed plover. This tern, like the others, hovers screaming overhead
when its breeding-ground is intruded on; but recovers from its anxiety
only too quickly, for no sooner has the intruder got a little distance
away than the bird drops down directly on to its nest. When the female
is incubating the male brings food for her, and Mr. Trevor-Battye has
described in his ‘Pictures in Prose’ the pretty way in which the birds
play with each other before the fish is delivered. ‘Returned from his
quest, the bird with a fish in his bill circles round and round, and
lower and lower, over his mate, and presently drops down beside her.
Then he begins a series of extraordinary evolutions. With head thrown
back, wings drooping, and tail cocked straight up, he struts--no other
word expresses it--he struts about in front of his mate.... He jumps at
his mate, as if daring her to take the fish. Then he will fly round for
a bit, only to settle again and repeat the play. I have seen on several
occasions a female “chit,” before she had settled down on her eggs, get
up, fly off, settle on the shingle off and on for a considerable time,
followed persistently by her fish-bearing partner, but always avoiding
him, as if coquetting or really annoyed. Sooner or later the fish is
always relinquished, or, as I suspect, taken by the female bird.’
In Norfolk the little terns are called chits, or chit-perles.
Sandwich Tern.
Sterna cantiaca.
Bill and feet black; upper part of the head black; mantle pearl-grey;
rump, tail, throat, and under parts white; the breast suffused with
rose. Length, sixteen inches.
* * * * *
This is the largest of the British terns, being as much superior as the
little tern is inferior in size to the arctic and common species. In
its manner of flight and language it differs somewhat from the others.
At a distance the under parts appear to be of a snowy whiteness; in the
captive or dead bird the white plumage is seen to be suffused with an
evanescent delicate pink colour. On the wing the Sandwich tern does not
look so graceful and beautiful as the smaller species: the flight is
heavier, straighter, unwavering, the wings beating more rapidly. Its
scream is shorter, less inflected, and has a harsh and even grating
sound.
This tern suffers much from the persecutions of the egg-collector, as
well as of that base kind of sportsman who is allowed to amuse himself
in August and September by slaughtering terns. On the Farne Islands,
which are protected during the breeding season, there now exists a
considerable colony of Sandwich terns, numbering about one thousand
pairs, and a few smaller colonies are found on the coasts of Scotland
and Ireland, and on some of the lakes of those countries. On the Farnes
the birds breed on one of the islands on a flat surface overgrown with
sea-campion, and here their nests are placed so close together that
it is difficult at times to walk over the ground without treading on
the nests containing eggs or young birds. The eggs are two or three in
number, and are stone-colour with a yellow tinge, thickly spotted with
grey or brown.
* * * * *
Besides the five species described, there are eight terns set down in
the books as British. Of these, the Caspian tern, gull-billed tern,
and black tern, are described as ‘irregular visitors,’ and come in
small numbers; the whiskered tern, white-winged black tern, sooty tern,
Scopoli’s sooty tern, and noddy, are all rare stragglers, the last
three from the tropics. The black tern (_Hydrochelidon nigra_) was
in reality a British bird in former times, a summer visitor, breeding
in immense numbers in the fens and marshes in some of the eastern
counties. It bred ‘in myriads’ in Norfolk as late as 1818, and, in
diminishing numbers, down to 1835. ‘Drainage and persecution’ caused
the destruction of this graceful species.
[Illustration: FIG. 109.--BLACK TERN. ⅐ natural size.]
Kittiwake.
Rissa tridactyla.
Bill greenish yellow; legs and feet black; mantle deep grey; head,
neck, tail, and under parts white. Length, fifteen and a half inches.
* * * * *
The kittiwake takes its pretty name from its usual cry, composed of
three notes, two quick and short, and one long. It is the smallest of
the British gulls, excluding the stragglers, and is also one of the
handsomest and most interesting in its habits. It is more of a sea-bird
than most gulls, feeding principally on small fish, which it captures
after the manner of a tern, hovering motionless for a few moments, then
dashing down on to the water with great force. It is common round the
British Islands throughout the year, but probably most of the birds
that breed on our coasts migrate to more southern regions in winter,
their places, meanwhile, being taken by visitors from the north. Its
breeding-sites, often shared with the guillemot and razorbill, are
precipitous rocky cliffs fronting the sea, the nest being placed on
the ledges and wherever a projecting rock affords standing-room for a
bird of its size. When the colony is a numerous one the birds may be
seen whitening the face of the precipice from within a few feet above
high-water mark to within a few feet of the top. The nests, often
placed so near together as to be almost touching, are rather bulky,
built of seaweed mixed with turf, and lined with dry grass. Two or
three, sometimes four, eggs are laid, varying in ground-colour from
greenish blue to olive-brown, or buff, or buffish brown, spotted and
blotched with reddish brown, and under-markings of pale brown and grey.
Where suitable sites exist, and the birds are not too much molested,
the kittiwakes have breeding colonies on the British coasts from the
Scilly Islands and the Cornish and Devon cliffs right away to St. Kilda
in the north. The kittiwakes breed later than most gulls, unfortunately
for them. It has been pointed out again and again that the young birds
are often hardly able to feed themselves, and in many cases are not yet
out of their nests, at the end of July, which is also the end of the
close time for sea-birds. It then becomes lawful for the scoundrels
who practise this form of sport to slaughter the kittiwakes--both the
helpless young and the parent birds that are engaged in feeding and
protecting them.
Herring-Gull.
Larus argentatus.
Bill yellow; legs and feet flesh-colour; mantle grey; head, tail, and
lower parts white; outer primaries black. Length, twenty-four inches.
* * * * *
The herring-gull, which derives its name from its habit of following
the shoals of herrings, is common on our coasts throughout the year.
Like most gulls, it searches the shore at ebb-tide for stranded marine
animals, dead and alive, and garbage of all kinds. It quarrels with
ravens and crows over the carcass of a dead sheep, and, like the
raven, is a plunderer of eggs and young birds from the cliffs. It
is often seen at a distance from the sea, roaming over the moors in
search of prey or carrion; and it also feeds on insects and, like the
black-headed gull, sometimes follows the plough to pick up worms and
grubs. It nests on precipitous, rocky shores, usually making choice of
the summit or upper ledges. It also breeds on flat islands, sometimes
in company with the lesser black-backed gull, which it resembles in
size and general appearance. It usually breeds in communities, but is
not so strictly gregarious as most gulls at this season. The nest,
which is usually somewhat bulky, is composed of seaweed and herbage,
and lined with dry grass. Three eggs are laid, stone-colour or light
olive-brown, spotted and blotched with dark umber.
Lesser Black-backed Gull.
Larus fuscus.
Bill, legs, and feet yellow; summer plumage of the adult white,
except on the mantle, which varies from slate-grey to black. Length,
twenty-three inches.
* * * * *
From its abundance, its large size--which is nearly the same as that
of the herring-gull--and its extremely conspicuous black-and-white
plumage at maturity, the lesser black-back is one of the most familiar
birds on our coasts. The young differ greatly from the adults, having
a slate-grey beak, flesh-coloured legs, and a general brown plumage.
The mature breeding colours, including yellow on legs and bill, with
a vermilion patch on the lower mandible, are not perfect until the
fourth year. Judging solely from this fact of its slow growth to
maturity, we may take it that the lesser black-back lives long--that
its natural term, as in some accipitrine species, probably exceeds a
century. It is certainly the case that this gull is able, not only to
keep itself alive, but to keep up its numbers, notwithstanding its
large size and the dislike with which it is regarded on account of its
predacious habits. The unfeathered biped is ever anxious to keep all
the killing and plundering in his own hands. The voice of this gull is
very powerful and far-reaching, and, when soaring with its fellows,
occasionally all the birds unite their voices in a chorus of short and
long cries, laughter-like in character, yet with something solemn,
and even desolate, in the sound, as of the sea. It is gregarious and
social at all seasons, and breeds in gulleries, where the nests are
placed close together on the level ground. The three eggs are of a
light stone colour, spotted and blotched with blackish brown and grey.
The largest and best-known colony on the British coasts is at the
Farne Islands, and of that colony Seebohm writes: ‘It is a wonderful
sight on approaching an island to see the green mass sprinkled all
over with large white-looking birds, every one standing head to wind,
like an innumerable army of white weathercocks.’ It is also fine to
see and hear them, when a person walks about among the nests, stooping
occasionally to examine eggs or handle the yellow, black-spotted
chicks: the birds hover in a dense cloud over his head, their deep,
powerful cries mingling in one mighty uproar, and, at short intervals,
one or two birds dash down out of the bird-cloud as if to strike his
head, and, missing it by an inch or two, reascend to repeat the action.
Common Gull.
Larus canus.
Bill greenish at the base, yellow at the tip; legs and feet greenish
yellow; mantle ash-grey; first two primaries black, with a white patch
near the extremity; the rest black near the end; head, neck, tail, and
under parts white. Length, eighteen and a half inches.
* * * * *
The name of this species is somewhat misleading, as it is less
numerous on most of our coasts, and in estuaries and rivers, than the
black-headed species, which indeed is often called the common gull.
When flying about in company, the two species are indistinguishable in
the winter plumage. The common gull has no breeding-place south of the
Border. In Scotland and its islands there are several colonies, and
in Ireland a few. In its habits it is intermediate between the marine
and inland species, and its gulleries are placed both on islands near
the sea-coast and in lochs at a distance from the shore. Like the
herring-gull and black-headed gull, it follows the plough to pick up
worms and grubs, and roams over moors, marshes, and pasture-lands in
search of insects, small vertebrates, and carrion. The nest is bulky,
and composed of seaweed, herbage, and dry grass. Three eggs are laid,
olive-brown, spotted and streaked with blackish.
Great Black-backed Gull.
Larus marinus.
Bill yellow; legs and feet flesh-colour; plumage as in the lesser
black-backed gull. Length, thirty inches.
* * * * *
[Illustration: FIG. 110.--GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. ¹⁄₁₁ natural
size.]
Turner, who wrote on British birds three centuries ago, in describing
the great black-backed gull, says that it was called ‘cob’ on the
Kentish and Essex coast. It is curious to find that it is still known
by this name in the same localities, where it is now very rare. In
colour and appearance it closely resembles the lesser black-back, but
exceeds it in size, and is nearly twice as heavy--it is, in fact, the
largest of the gulls. It is also the rarest species in the British
Islands; for although its breeding-sites are not few in Scotland,
while others exist on the coasts of England, Wales, and Ireland, its
colonies are very small compared with those of other species, and in
many cases the breeding-place is occupied by a single pair. Its habits
are similar to those of the herring and lesser black-backed gulls; but
being so much larger and more powerful, it is more injurious to other
sea-birds, whose nests it plunders of their eggs or young. It is also
more oceanic, straying to a great distance from land in its search for
dead animal matter floating on the waves--a veritable ‘vulture of the
sea.’ Its nest is placed, as a rule, on the summit of an inaccessible
rock on the coast, or on a small rocky island, and is carelessly
formed of seaweed and grass. Two or three eggs are laid, greyish
brown, sometimes tinged with olive, with dark brown spots distributed
sparingly over the whole surface.
Black-headed Gull.
Larus ridibundus.
Bill and feet red; head and upper part of the neck blackish brown;
mantle grey; all the rest, white; the under parts tinged with pink. The
black on the head is lost in winter. Length, sixteen inches.
* * * * *
The black-headed gull, if not the most abundant of its genus, is
without doubt the most generally known, on account of its wide
diffusion in the country, and of its habit of breeding in inland
marshes. It remains throughout the year, most of the time frequenting
the flat parts of the sea-coast, estuaries, and tidal rivers, where it
is seen perpetually roaming up and down in search of the small fishes
and crustaceans on which it feeds, and any dead animal matter cast up
by the tide. In its winter dress it is almost impossible to tell this
species from the common gull and kittiwake when they are seen together,
as in size they are nearly alike, and the buoyant, leisurely flight
and circling motions in the air are the same in all. But very early in
spring the distinguishing mark and nuptial ornament of a black hood is
assumed, after which there can be no mistake. And here I may remark
that I differ from Howard Saunders when he says that, as the hood is
not black, the bird should be called the brown-headed gull. Vernacular
names of this kind are descriptive of the creatures as they appear to
us when seen living in a state of nature; and at a distance of twenty
or thirty yards, which is as close as a flying gull will come to a man,
the hood certainly appears to be black.
[Illustration: BLACK-HEADED GULLS. POCHARDS. SHOVELER.
WATER-HENS.]
In March the gulls withdraw to marshes and meres to breed. The
breeding-place is usually in the neighbourhood of the sea, sometimes
in an inland district. Year after year the same spot is resorted to,
and it is known that some of the gulleries in this country have existed
for centuries. One of the largest and best known in England is at
Scoulton Mere, in Norfolk. Half a century ago 20,000 birds annually
bred at this spot, but the colony has now diminished to less than half
that number. A favourite site for the gullery is an island in a mere
or swamp, and the nests are placed both on the ground and on clumps of
rushes or tussocks of grass. Three or four eggs are laid, varying in
ground-colour from olive-brown to pale green, blue, or salmon, blotched
with black and dark brown. During the breeding season the birds seek
their food over the surrounding country in marshes, meadow-lands, and
fields that are being ploughed. Seebohm says: ‘So easily do they adapt
themselves to changed circumstances, that they have already become used
to the steam-plough. It is a very pretty sight to watch a party of
these little gulls, looking snow-white in the distance against the rich
brown of the newly turned-up soil, paddling amongst the clumsy clods
with dainty, red-webbed feet, and continually lifting their white wings
to balance themselves on the rough ground, reminding one of a group
of angels by Gustave Doré.’ One suspects that Doré, being, like other
artists, incapable of imagining the unimaginable, made use of gulls and
such like as models for his angels.
This gull, like most of the Laridæ, is a vociferous bird, and his
notes--short and rapid, like excited exclamations, or drawn out,
guttural in tone, and inflected in various ways--often sound like
laughter; hence the name of laughing gull, sometimes given to this
species, and the specific name of _ridibundus_. To my ear it is
like the guttural and extravagant laughter of the negro, rather than
that of the white man.
* * * * *
Besides the six species described, there are six others, belonging
to the sub-family Larinæ (true gulls), which figure in the books as
British species. One of these (the second on the list) is perhaps a
regular visitor.
Ivory gull (_Pagophila eburnea_).--A circumpolar species; occasionally
straggles to the British coasts.
Glaucous gull (_Larus glaucus_).--Circumpolar in its range; a winter
visitor to the northern parts of the United Kingdom.
Iceland gull (_L. leucopterus_).--A rare winter visitor (to the north)
from the arctic regions.
Great black-headed gull (_L. ichthyaëtus_).--A single specimen of this
southern species was obtained many years ago in this country.
Little gull (_L. minutus_).--An irregular visitor from continental
Europe.
Sabine’s gull (_Xema sabinii_).--A rare straggler from North America.
Common or Great Skua.
Stercorarius catarrhactes.
[Illustration: FIG. 111.--GREAT SKUA. ¹⁄₁₂ natural size.]
Upper parts mottled brown; shafts of the quills and tail-feathers
white; under parts rufous-brown; bill, legs, and feet black. Length,
twenty-five inches.
* * * * *
Of skuas there are but six species, two of which inhabit the southern
hemisphere, and breed on the confines of the antarctic regions. The
others belong to the northern half of the globe, and range in summer
to the arctic regions. These four are all claimed as members of the
British avifauna, but only two species need be fully described in this
work. The skuas are gull-like birds, very strong on the wing, and swift
flyers; and, like the gulls, they have a variety of feeding-habits,
and are both the vultures and hawks of the sea. In the skuas there
is more of the hawk and not so much of the vulture. Their predatory
habits, extreme violence in attack, and readiness to take and destroy
their feathered fellow-creatures and toilers of the deep when the
occasion offers, have won them a reputation among birds similar to that
of a pirate among men--the lawless rover of the sea, who is without
compunction, and whose hand is against every man. In shape and general
appearance the skuas are gull-like; they differ chiefly from the gulls
in the form of the beak, which is straight for two-thirds of its
length, and for the rest curved into a hook, as in the raptorial birds;
and in the form of the tail, which is cuneiform, with the two centre
feathers projecting beyond the others. In the gulls the tail-feathers
are of equal length; while the terns, at the other end of this order of
birds, have sharply forked tails like the swallow.
The great skua, or bonxie, as it is called by the Shetlanders, is
the largest of the family. Except during the breeding season it is
a solitary bird, oceanic in its habits, roaming far and wide over
the waters in quest of food, its visits to land being restricted to
rocky island coasts. Like the marine gulls, it feeds on dead fish
found stranded or floating on the water, and on dead animal matter
of all kinds, and also catches fish by pouncing on them as they swim
near the surface. But it prefers to watch the movements of the other
fishing-birds, which it follows and associates with to rob them of
their prey. The herring-gull and lesser black-back may be frequently
seen pursuing a tern or kittiwake to take from it the fish it has just
captured; but these would-be robbers are not very successful--the
chased tern, or small gull, in most cases proves too quick for them.
These are like the merest mock chases and playful interludes in
the day’s work compared with the sudden, furious onslaught of the
bonxie. The swiftest gull or tern cannot escape from him; he can turn
as quickly as a swallow, and keep close to his victim in all his
doublings, until the chased bird in his terror disgorges the fish he
has just swallowed. The skua stays his flight to pick up the falling
morsel, and the chase is over. Besides robbing the birds of their prey,
he is also a bird-killer, making his deadly attacks on the sickly or
wounded, and on the young in the breeding season.
The great skua breeds in the Shetlands, but the birds have now
been reduced to a few pairs, chiefly owing to the persecution of
collectors. Every effort has been made to protect the birds in their
two small colonies on Unst and Foula, but it is scarcely to be
hoped that this insignificant remnant will continue to exist many
years, when we consider that the childish and contemptible craze of
eggshell-collecting is very common, and that many collectors do not
hesitate to steal, or to bribe others to steal for them, the eggs they
desire to have in their cabinets.
About April the surviving birds return to their ancestral
breeding-grounds and make their simple nests, composed of a few twigs
or a little dry grass, in a slight hollow in the ground. The two eggs
laid vary in ground-colour from pale to dark buffish brown, and are
spotted with dark brown, with greyish brown underlying spots. They
resemble the eggs of the herring-gull and lesser black-back.
In the breeding season the skua is a terror to all birds in the
vicinity of its nest, as it is even more savage and impetuous in the
defence of its eggs than when seeking its prey. Ravens, sea-eagles,
dogs, and foxes, are violently attacked and driven off by it. It is
also very bold towards a human intruder, gliding to and fro close to
the surface within a few feet of him, and hovering overhead, screaming,
and occasionally dashing down violently at his head, and all but
striking it. They do strike sometimes, it is said, and it is related
by the Shetlanders that birds have impaled themselves on a knife held
up to ward off an attack, and have met their death in other curious
ways, when trying to defend their nests. These stories are doubtless
true, although the birds are less bold now than formerly, a long and
sad experience having taught them that there is one enemy they cannot
frighten away. I have often been struck by birds engaged in defending
their nests--hawks, waders, and perching birds--and in some cases the
striker has stunned himself; but this happened at a distance from
Britain, in a region where birds have not been persecuted so long, and
fear man less.
It is from its exceedingly violent down-rushing method of attack that
the great skua derives its specific name of _catarrhactes_. It
rushes down like a cataract. This is an ancient name for a bird of
prey, and, in this case, a singularly fit one. But what shall we say of
Brisson’s hideous and ridiculous invention of _Stercorarius_ as
the generic name for all the skuas?
Richardson’s Skua.
Stercorarius crepidatus.