British Sea Birds

Charles Dixon

British Sea Birds

CHAPTER I.

GULLS AND TERNS

The Gull Family – Changes of Plumage – Characteristics – Great Black-backed Gull – Lesser Black-backed Gull – Herring Gull – Common Gull – Kittiwake – Black-headed Gull – Skuas – Great Skua – Richardson’s Skua – Terns – Sandwich Tern – Common Tern – Arctic Tern – Roseate Tern – Lesser Tern – Black Tern

Amongst the many natural objects that confront the visitor to the sea, there are none more readily detected than birds. The wide waters of the ocean and its varied coast-line of cliff or sand, shingle or mud-flat, are the haunts of many birds of specialised type. Many of these birds are only found on or near the sea; they are as inseparably associated with it as the beautiful shells and seaweeds and anemones themselves. Some of these birds are common and widely distributed; others are scarce or local in their habitat; some frequent the shore, others the water; whilst many are equally at home on both. Again, many of them are migratory, or of wandering habits; some but summer visitors, others winter refugees. It matters little, however, what the season may be, for many interesting birds are sure to be met with by the sea; the wide waters and wet tide-swept shores are a perennial feeding place, and a safe and congenial refuge.

Of all the birds that haunt the sea and the shore, those of the Gull family are the best known. From whichever direction the sea is reached, almost invariably the first indication of its vicinity is a Gull, sailing along, it may be, in easy, careless flight, or wheeling and gliding high in air above the waste of restless waters. The Gull and its kindred then are inseparably associated in the minds of most people with the sea, and with them, therefore, it certainly seems most appropriate to commence our study of marine bird-life.

The Gull family is divided by many systematists into three fairly well-defined groups or sub-families, viz., the typical Gulls or Larinæ, the Skuas or Stercorariinæ, and the Terns or Sterninæ. The Skuas, however, are included with the typical Gulls by many naturalists, a proceeding for which much may be said, thus reducing the three sub-families to two. In their distribution the Gulls and Terns may almost be regarded as cosmopolitan, but the Skuas are chiefly boreal in their dispersal, four of the half dozen known species breeding in the Arctic Regions, and two others dwelling in the higher latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Some of the species are very widely distributed; the dispersal of others is just as remarkably restricted. For instance, the Glaucous Gull has a circumpolar habitat, and the Black-headed Gull ranges from the Faröe Islands to Japan; but, on the other hand, Larus fuliginosus is said to be peculiar to the Galapagos Islands and Larus bulleri to New Zealand. Three out of the four species of Arctic Skuas are circumpolar in their distribution; the fourth may possibly be so.

In adult plumage the Gulls are not remarkable for any great diversity of colour. French gray predominates upon the upper parts; the under parts are white, often suffused with a delicate rosy tint; the primaries are usually dark gray, brown, or black, in many species spotted and tipped with white. Some species assume (by a change of colour and not by a moult) a sooty-brown or black head or hood during the breeding season; Ross’s Gull dons a black narrow collar at that period. The wings are ample, long, and pointed; the tail is even, except in Ross’s Gull in which it is wedge-shaped, and in Sabine’s Gull in which it is forked. The legs are comparatively short, and the feet are webbed.

Gulls moult twice in the year. When first hatched young Gulls are covered with down. Young, in first plumage of the Black-headed group of Gulls, have the feathers of the mantle, the scapulars, and the innermost secondaries, brown with pale margins; the crown, nape, and ear-coverts brown; and the tail with a broad sub-terminal band of the same colour. The second plumage – assumed as soon as the foregoing is completed – retains brown marks of immaturity on the scapulars and innermost secondaries; the wing-coverts are streaked with brown, and the tail still retains its brown sub-terminal band. This plumage is carried until the following spring, when the brown hood – assumed for the first time – is mottled with white; the tail-band is more or less broken; whilst the scapulars and innermost secondaries assume the colour peculiar to the adult. For several years the white markings on the primaries gradually increase in extent until the bird arrives at perfect maturity. The larger Gulls – of which the Herring Gull may be taken as a typical species – mature much more slowly, the perfectly adult plumage not being assumed until the bird is four years old. The plumage succeeding the downy stage is brown on the upper parts, each feather with a pale margin, and white on the under parts streaked with brown. After each succeeding moult in spring and autumn, the traces of immaturity grow less, the wing-coverts and tail retaining them longest. The white spots on the primaries are the latest signs of complete maturity. The colour of the feet, bill, iris, and irides, slowly changes until that characteristic of the adult is assumed.

Gulls, popularly speaking, are inseparably associated with the sea, yet the haunts of many species, especially during the breeding season, are by no means exclusively marine ones. Almost every kind of coast is frequented by these birds – rocky headlands, precipitous downs, sandy dunes, mud-flats or slob-lands, and marshes; whilst every harbour round the shore of our islands is periodically visited. Gulls are not very pronounced migrants. They wander about a good deal during the non-breeding season, and many Arctic species draw southwards during winter, but all the indigenous British forms are residents on and off the coasts throughout the year. With these few words of introduction we will now proceed to give a more detailed account of the strictly British species.

GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL

This, the largest of the Gulls, and scientifically known as Larus marinus, is one of the least common British species, most locally distributed during the breeding season. It is not known to breed anywhere on the east coast of England, and but very locally on the south coast, in Dorset. It becomes more numerous in the wilder districts, in Cornwall, the Scilly Islands, and Lundy, and thence locally along the Welsh coast and in the Solway district. In Scotland it becomes more common, especially among the islands of the west coast, including St. Kilda, and on the north coast to the Orkneys and Shetlands. It is also widely distributed in Ireland, but there, as everywhere else, extremely local, and nowhere, comparatively speaking, numerous. During the non-breeding season it wanders more, and is then seen at many places along the coast. I have seen as many as fifty of these fine birds in Tor Bay, after heavy gales from the eastward. Montagu asserts that this Gull is locally known as a “Cob,” but the term is of pretty general application to the larger Gulls, and, so far as I can learn, has no distinctive significance. In St. Kilda, where I had many opportunities of studying the habits of this Gull, it is regarded with hatred by the natives, owing to its depredations amongst the eggs of the other sea-fowl. In this island it is universally known by the name of “Farspach.” No Gull is more wary, and yet on occasion none are bolder and more daring. I have seen a bird of this species tear to pieces a Puffin I had shot as it floated upon the sea, and that in spite of several shots I had at it with a rifle. It is a sad robber of the other and more weakly Gulls, not only pillaging their nests at every opportunity, but chasing them, and making them relinquish bits of food they may chance to pick up within view. Like the Raven and the Crow, it seems fully conscious of its marauding misdeeds, and correspondingly artful, as if always instinctively fearing that treatment it metes out so lavishly to creatures more helpless than itself.

The Great Black-backed Gull is one of the least gregarious of the family, and the large gatherings of this species that are sometimes witnessed are chiefly due to such accidental causes as an unwonted supply of food, or a continued spell of boisterous weather, which often drives Gulls in thousands into sheltered bays and estuaries. This Gull is generally met with beating about in a solitary manner; less frequently three or four may be seen together; whilst even in the breeding season, when most Gulls congregate into colonies whose size seems only to be regulated by the accommodation presented, it is certainly the least sociable of all the British species. It is a great nomad during the non-breeding season, often wandering far from land, resting and sleeping on the sea. On the other hand, it is one of the least frequent visitors of the Gull-tribe to inland districts, and, as its specific name of marinus indicates, is closely attached to the sea. The usual call-note of this fine Gull is a loud, whining, oft-repeated ag-ag-ag. Notwithstanding the purity of its plumage, and the magnificence of its presence, the Great Black-backed Gull is almost as unclean in its habits as the Raven or the Vulture. No kind of carrion is refused, either lying on the shore or floating on the sea – weakly, death-stricken lambs or wounded birds, eggs or chicks left unguarded by their owners, fish basking or sleeping near the surface, offal cast from the fishing boats or quays, animal refuse of all kinds, form the prey of this Gull.

The usual breeding place of this Gull is the top of an isolated rock stack, a little distance from the mainland; less frequently it selects a range of high cliffs overhanging the sea. A small island in a mountain loch is sometimes selected, and occasionally this may be some considerable distance inland. In a few chosen spots the birds nest in such close, if somewhat scattered proximity, that we might call it a colony, but the rule is for odd and more or less isolated pairs to be met with, and often at considerable distances apart. The fact that this Gull may be found nesting in one chosen spot year by year, warrants the supposition that it may pair for life. The usually scanty nest is made in a hollow amongst the short turf, or heath, or on the flat ledge of a precipice. Sometimes the eggs are laid in a bare hollow amongst the rocks. It is formed of grass, dry sea-weed, twigs, and stalks of marine plants, and occasionally a tuft of wool or a few odd feathers are placed in the lining. The eggs are usually three in number, but sometimes only two, or even one. They are grayish-brown, or brown sometimes tinged with olive in ground colour, spotted with dark umber-brown and brownish-gray. This Gull is a very light sitter, but is bold and clamorous when disturbed from the nest.

LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL

Very similar in appearance, but much smaller in size – it is only about half the weight – this pretty Gull, the Larus fuscus of Linnæus, is one of the most familiar birds of the coast, especially in the more northerly portions of the British Islands. It is a more trustful species than its larger ally, admits man to approach it with less show of fear or wariness, and may often be seen on the meadows and ploughed fields near the sea, seeking for its food as familiarly as a Rook or a Daw. Singularly enough, the east and south coasts of England are not resorted to by this Gull for breeding purposes. It is not known to breed south of the coast of Northumberland, or east of that of Devonshire; and this is all the more remarkable, seeing that one of its most important colonies in our area is situated upon the Farne Islands. It breeds locally from Cornwall to the Solway, but further northwards becomes more generally dispersed, right up to the Orkneys and the Shetlands. In Ireland, again, this Gull is a very local breeder, and is only known to nest in one or two localities. During the non-breeding season it wanders far from home, and may then be met with on and off most of the British coasts: young and immature birds do not resort much to the nesting colonies, but roam widely at all seasons. It is a very remarkable fact that adult Gulls of this species are so rarely seen near Heligoland, as the species breeds commonly on the Baltic and Scandinavian coasts, and yet its average appearance at the island is about once in ten years! The Heligolandish name for this Gull is very appropriate, signifying “little mantle wearer,” and refers to the dark slate-gray mantle. Unlike its larger ally the present species is very gregarious, and socially inclined at all seasons, mixing freely not only with its own kind, but with the Herring Gull and the smaller forms, such as the Kittiwake, and the Common Gull. These latter birds, however, must too often prefer its room to its company, for it repeatedly robs them of their prey, and is, Gull-like, ever ready to profit by the labours of its weaker congeners. Like the preceding species it is almost omnivorous in its tastes, and will as readily make a meal from stranded garbage on the shore, as from the living fish it deftly swoops upon as they swim near the surface. On the Lincolnshire coasts it visits the flight nets, in company with the Hooded Crows, and preys upon any birds that may be entangled in them. It is also a persistent follower of ships, attending the trawlers, and feeding upon the refuse fish cast overboard when the trawl net is emptied. It swims lightly enough even on a rough sea, riding like a cork on the wave-crests, and sleeps upon the water, when roaming far from land. Flocks of this Gull may often be seen standing upon the mud-flats or level sandy reaches, preening their plumage, and waiting, it may be, for a turn of the tide that may bring some particular food of which they are in quest. It will be remarked that these larger Gulls, especially, often run for a short distance before taking flight, and that when alighting they frequently keep their long wings unfolded and erect for a moment or two before finally closing them. Great numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls and other species collect in Tor Bay during the herring and sprat seasons, and at these times they will wait and watch about the harbours and quays in fluttering hosts for the odd fish and offal. The note of this Gull very closely resembles that of the Herring Gull, so closely, in fact, that no symbol can denote the difference. It may be syllabled as klĭ-ou-klĭ-ou, and during the breeding season is very persistently uttered. Owing to its relatively longer wings, this Gull looks more graceful in the air than its larger and heavier congener: its flight is remarkably easy and buoyant, and on occasion rapid.

The usual breeding places of the Lesser Black-backed Gull are low rocky islands – these larger Gulls always prefer an island, covered with coarse marine grass, sea campion, and the like – but in some localities a rock stack, an island in an inland lake, on grassy downs, in mosses, and flows. This Gull usually breeds in colonies, and some of these are very large. One of the most extensive, within the present writer’s experience, is situated on the Farne Islands. The entire group of islands may be regarded as one vast colony of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, if we except a few of the outlying rocks, where the Cormorants breed. It is more than likely that this Gull pairs for life, seeing that it resorts to the same nesting places, year by year, for time out of mind. The nest, even in the same colony, varies a good deal in size and general completeness. Some birds are content merely to line a hollow in the rocks with a little dry grass; others are more bulky yet slovenly structures, rude heaps of turf, heather stems, sea campions, or dry grass and sea-weed, the lining being composed of finer grasses, many of them often semi-green. Occasionally a feather or two are seen, but these may be due more to accident than to design. Few sights in the bird-world are prettier than a colony of disturbed Gulls during the breeding season. As their haunts are invaded, the frightened birds rise in fluttering thousands, drifting to and fro like a snowstorm, in which each flake is a startled bird. The noisy din, the rush of wings, the swooping, soaring, fluttering Gulls, the ground strewn with nests – all combine to form a picture in the mind that time can never efface! The eggs of this Gull are usually three in number, sometimes as many as four. They vary to an almost incredible degree. The ground colour varies from pale green to dark olive-brown and gray, spotted, blotched, or streaked with dark liver-brown, pale brown and gray. Vast numbers of the eggs of this Gull are collected for food, especially at the Farne Islands. The birds do not appear to suffer in any way by this systematic pillage, for they are always allowed to rear a brood from a second clutch at the Farnes, and most rigorously protected whilst doing so.

HERRING-GULL

Of all the gulls that frequent the British coasts, this, the well-known Larus argentatus (i. e. “silver-winged”), is certainly the most common and widely dispersed. It is no exaggeration to say that the Herring-Gull may be met with on every part of the British coasts, from the Orkney and Shetland Islands on the north, to Cornwall and the Scilly Islands in the south; from the Blasquets in the wild west of Ireland, to the mouth of the Thames and the Bass Rock in the east. It is the Gull par excellence associated in the popular mind with the sea shore – the “Sea Gull” of the visitor to marine resorts, ubiquitous, well-known from the Land’s End to John-o’-Groat’s. For its size, it is certainly the tamest and least suspecting Gull found on British waters. It may be readily recognised, when adult, by the pale grey colour of its mantle, but the young and immature birds are less easily identified. During the non-breeding season it wanders far and wide like the rest of its kind, and is a very frequent visitor to the fields, not only adjoining the sea, but at some distance inland. Whilst tilling operations are in progress, especially in spring, it passes regularly from the coast to the fields, following the plough, or collecting upon the newly-manured pastures, in quest of food. Wild, stormy weather, I have repeatedly noticed, will also drive this Gull landwards sooner, perhaps, than any other species. Like its congeners, it is practically omnivorous. Carrion is sought after as readily as living fish and other marine creatures. I have also known this species regularly to visit a slaughter-house near the coast, to feed upon the offal thrown upon the pastures for manure; and I have repeatedly watched the pure-plumaged birds fighting with the Rooks and Crows for a share of the feast. This Gull will also feed on grain, grubs, and worms, is a constant follower of vessels, and congregates in unusual numbers at fishing harbours during the sprat and herring seasons. In its flight it is graceful in the extreme, and it may often be seen soaring at a vast altitude like a Vulture. Writing on the flight of this Gull, Gätke (in his fascinating work, Heligoland, as an Ornithological Observatory) says: “Not only are these Gulls able to soar in a calm atmosphere in a direction straight forwards, or sideways, on calmly outspread wings, but, as has been more fully discussed in the case of Buzzards, they can also, in a manner similar to theirs, soar upwards to any desirable altitude. The Gulls are able to perform their soaring movements on the same plane in all phases of the weather, during the most violent storm, as well as in a perfect calm, progressing forwards or sideways at the most variable rates of velocity; now darting along with the swiftness of an arrow, now merely gliding, as it were, at the slowest pace imaginable. In the latter case, indeed, we are frequently, even against our will, forced to the conclusion that these birds must have at their command some unknown means or mechanism which prevents their sinking; for neither is the surface-area of their wings large enough, nor are these organs sufficiently concave in form, to allow of their supporting the bird after the manner of a parachute.” I can endorse these remarks fully from my own observations (Conf. Idle Hours with Nature, pp. 261, 262). That these flights are accompanied with any vibratory movements of the feathers is erroneous, as I have had many opportunities of satisfying myself, especially when observing the flight of the Fulmar at St. Kilda, the birds then not being more than six feet away from me, when I am positive every individual feather was in perfect rest.

But to return from this digression to the general habits of the Herring Gull. The breeding season of this Gull is in May and June. Owing to its remarkable aptitude for accommodating itself to the various peculiarities of the coast, it is certainly the most widely dispersed Gull of the British species during the season of reproduction. Perhaps its favourite breeding place is a low rocky island, but failing this it is equally at home upon a range of sea cliffs, a stack of rocks, or less frequently an island in a loch, or, as at Foulshaw Moss in Westmoreland, a marsh. The nest is made on a ledge or in a hollow or chink of the cliffs; in a sheltered hollow of the grassy downs: or amongst the thick growth of sea campion, thrift, and other marine plants that often grow so luxuriantly in the bird’s haunts. I have remarked that the nest is usually larger when built on a cliff than when on the ground, and in some cases is almost dispensed with. It is composed of turf, dry sea-weed, coarse grass, and stalks of various marine plants, lined with finer grass often gathered green. The eggs are two or three in number, varying in ground colour from pale bluish-green through yellowish-brown to olive-brown, and the spots are small and few and dark brown, pale brown, and gray. This Gull will lay a second lot of eggs if the first clutch be taken, as they often are, for culinary purposes. When the nesting places are intruded upon by human visitors, the Gulls, as usual, become very noisy, the birds whose eggs are most directly threatened being filled with the greatest clamour. I have often remarked that Gulls whose nests were safe in inaccessible parts of the cliffs have remained quietly sitting on them, while their less fortunate neighbours have been filled with noisy alarm, as they watched the fate of their eggs from the air above. The note is very similar to that of the preceding species.

COMMON GULL

This pretty Gull, the Larus canus of Linnæus, is, during the summer months especially, one of the most locally distributed of the British species. The Common Gull formerly bred in Lancashire, but at the present time is not known to do so anywhere in England. From the Solway northwards, it becomes tolerably common as a breeding species, right up to the Shetlands, in many inland localities, as well as on the coast. It is also a somewhat local bird in Ireland. The Common Gull, or “Blue Maa,” as it is locally known, is about half the size of the Herring Gull, with a mantle, in the adult, almost as dark as that of the Lesser Black-backed Gull. During the non-breeding season this Gull is fairly well distributed along the coast, and then visits localities where it is never seen in summer. It is a decided shore species, rarely wandering far out to sea, and is one of the first Gulls driven inland by stormy weather. Although popularly believed to be so inseparably associated with the sea, the Gulls, and especially the smaller kinds such as the one now under notice, often resort to fields even at some distance from the water. The Common Gull seems as much at home inland as on the shore. I have seen it on the high moorlands, and in Scotland flying about many a loch pool, or land-locked sea arm; it is equally at home on the ploughed lands and the pastures, yet its plumage seems strangely out of place in such localities, and the incongruity is further intensified should the startled birds take refuge in a neighbouring tree, as they sometimes do. There is nothing specially remarkable about the flight of this Gull; it is performed in the slow and deliberate manner of all these birds, and is equally wonderful in many of its characteristics. The food of this Gull is composed indiscriminately of marine and terrestrial creatures. The bird will follow the plough, or search the pastures for grubs, insects, and worms; it searches the shore for any stranded creature to its omnivorous taste; it hunts the wide waste of waters in quest of fish, and follows vessels to pick up any refuse that may be thrown from them. This Gull is to a great extent nocturnal in autumn and winter. Its note is a harsh and persistently uttered yak-yak-yak, most frequently heard when its breeding places are invaded by man or predaceous animals. The Common Gull is a thoroughly gregarious and social bird, often congregating in large flocks, and mingling with other species.