Bird Watching/Chapter 6

by Edmund Selous

CHAPTER VI


Watching Ravens, Curlews, Eider-ducks, etc.

 

A pair of ravens on our island are also molested by the gulls, and when either of them flies from one point to another of the coast in their neighbourhood its path is marked by a constant succession of "annoying incidents" of this nature. That these stately birds should have to put up with rudeness from mere gulls does not seem right; but so it is, nor did I ever see either of the two make any serious attempt to overawe them. Personally, I must say that I was at first so little impressed by these ravens, that for a long time I did them the injustice of looking upon them as carrion crows. Certainly, the hoarse, bellowing croak which they uttered as they flew round when disturbed by me impressed me and made me wonder, but their size appeared altogether incompatible with the state of being a raven. I suppose the great frowning precipices over which they commonly circled had a dwarfing effect upon it, but they were manifestly smaller than any of the gulls which molested them, and this I was not prepared for from the specimens which I have seen in museums or languishing in captivity. That they were ravens however, is, I think, certain from the very peculiar croaking note to which I have alluded, and which they uttered at this time almost constantly.

When I came to the island these birds had already hatched out their young, of which there were four lying in a loose cradle of what looked like sticks, but could not have been, since these were nowhere procurable. It was a mass of something having the general appearance of a battered and flattened rook's nest, but what the actual materials of which it was constructed were, I am unable to say. The nest was on a ledge half-way down the face of a huge precipice forming one side of a fissure in the coast-line—the mouth of an immature fiord—dug out in the course of ages by the slow but ceaseless sapping of the sea. From the summit of the opposite side I could look across at and down upon it, having. an excellent view. The young birds—five in number—who were well fledged, and within, perhaps, a fortnight of leaving the nest, lay in it very flatly with their wings half spread out, and so motionless that for some time, upon first seeing them, I almost thought they must be dead. The sudden yet softly sudden rearing itself up of one with an expressive opening of the beak—expressive of "surely, surely, it must be meal-time again now"—gave a delightful assurance that this was not the case, and then there were more such risings and expressed convictions. At intervals only, however, for it was wonderful how still the young birds would lie for quite a long time, and so closely inwoven within the cup of the nest that it was only when they stirred that five became a possibility. The ledge being quite bare and open, the nest with the young in it, making a black bull's-eye in the midst of a great sheet of white, was conspicuously apparent. Several times I saw the young birds move themselves backwards to the inner edge of the nest, and then void their excrements over it, so that only a little of the quite outer portion was contaminated. By this means the nest is kept clean and dry, whilst all around it is defiled. It would seem as though this power of ejecting their excrements to a distance which various birds possess was, sometimes at least, in proportion to the size and bulk of the nest which they construct. The nest of the shag, for instance (and in a still greater degree that of the common cormorant), is a great mass of seaweed and other materials, and the force with which the excrement is shot out over this, both by the young and the parent birds, astonishes one, as does also its upward direction. I had always felt surprise when seeing cormorants and shags perform this natural function whilst standing on the rocks, but it was not till I had watched the latter birds for hour after hour, as they sat on their nests, that I understood (or thought I understood) the significance of it. In spite of the popular saying, it does not seem probable that all young birds act in this way, and many nests are so constructed that it would hardly be possible for them to do so. In most cases everything necessary for sanitation or convenience could be effected afterwards by the parent birds, but this would not be the case with ravens and cormorants, or with other such carnivorous or fish-eating species. Perhaps, therefore, the power which I speak of may stand in joint relation to the diet and habits of the bird, and the kind of nest which it builds.

I made many attempts to witness the feeding of these young ravens by their parents, but owing to there being no kind of cover from which I could watch, and no means of erecting a proper shelter, I was unable to do so. I did what I could by means of pieces of turf, and a plaid or waterproof stretched over them, but this was not sufficient to allay the suspicions of the old birds, who had always seen me as I came up, and from my first appearance over the brow of the hill flew around croaking and croaking, awaiting impatiently the moment of my departure. It would have been difficult not to sympathise with them, not to feel like an intruding vulgarian amidst that lonely wildness. For my part, I never tried not to, but yielded at once to the feeling, and retired each time with the humiliating reflection that the scene would be the better without me. Yet it seems strange that in any scene of natural beauty or grandeur, the one figure—should it happen to be there—that has the capacity to feel it is just the one that puts it out. Scott, for instance—though he were Scott—would not have improved any Highland bit, and Shakespeare's Cliff would hardly have looked the better for the presence even of Shakespeare himself. The samphire-gatherer, however, would have blended artistically, but neither he nor a kilted shepherd or clansman would have had any more appreciative perception of the beauties into which they fitted, than the "choughs and crows" themselves, the sheep, or the majority of tourists.^[1] It is not a matter of clothes alone. It would seem as though one must stand outside of a thing, and therefore be out of keeping with it, before one can feel and grasp it, though, heaven knows, the one need not involve the other.

But, though I missed the feeding, I twice saw the raven mother—the real one—cling on to the side of the nest and look in upon her young ones, who rose and greeted her hungrily. That was a glorious thing to see. There was something in the bird's look almost indescribable, a blending—as it seemed to me—of cunning, criminal knowledge combined with light-heartedness, and strong maternal affection. With the first two of these, and with the stately, yet half grotesque action, the bright, black eyes, and steely, glossy-purpling plumage (it never looked black through the glasses), a faint, flitting idea, as of the devil, was communicated, enhancing and giving piquancy to the delight. She hung thus for some moments, seeming to enjoy the sight of her children, yet all the while having her black, cunning eyes half turned up towards myself. Then she flew away, joining her mate, who had waited for her some way off at the accustomed place on the cliffs. It was when I saw her like this, and when the glasses isolated her from the general of rock and sea, that this raven seemed to assume her true size and dignity, and to become really a raven. When she flew it was different. Her sable pinions beating against the face of the precipice added no effect to it, but she was instantly dwarfed and dwindled, and became as nothing, a mere insignificant black speck, against its huge frowning grandeur.

Though, really, their plumage is all of gleaming, purply blues, at a little distance, and when they fly, ravens look a dead ugly black, which is also the case with rooks, who are almost equally handsome when seen closely. Their flight is peculiar, and though it strikes the imagination, yet it cannot be called at all grand or majestic in the ordinary sense of those words. The wings, which are broad, short, and rounded—or at any rate present that appearance to the eye—move with regular, quick little beats, or, when not flapped, are held out very straightly and rigidly. When thus extended, they are on a level with or, perhaps, a little below the line of the back, and from this, in beating, they only deviate downwards, and do not rise above it, or very triflingly so, giving them a very flat appearance. A curious curve is to be remarked in the anterior part of the spread wing, at first backwards towards the tail, and then again forwards towards the head. All the primary quills seem to partake of this shape, and they are also very noticeably disjoined one from another, so that the interspace, even whilst the wing is beaten, looks almost as wide as the quill—by which I mean the whole feather—itself. I tried to imagine the effect of a number of these sombre, quickly-beating pinions with the short eager croak, having something of a bellowing tone in it ("the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge") over the wide-extended carnage of an ancient battlefield, and thought I could do it pretty well—in spite of the difficulty, in the present day, of conjuring up such scenes.

 

Raven: The Game of Reversi

 

But, though the ordinary flight of ravens be as I have described, it does not at all follow that they may not sometimes soar or sail for long distances through the air, or descend through it at great speed, and with all sorts of whirring and whizzing evolutions. For all these things do the rooks, and yet their ordinary flight is of a heavy and plodding character. One very peculiar antic, or "trick i' the air," the raven certainly has. Whilst flapping steadily along with regular, though quick beat of the wings, it closes these all at once, quite tightly, as though it were on the ground, and immediately rolls over to one side or the other. Either the roll is complete, so that the bird comes right round again into its former position, or else, having got only so far as to be back downwards, it rolls back the reverse way. This has a most extraordinary appearance. The bird is stretched horizontally in the position in which it has just been flying, and in rolling over makes one think of a barrel or a man rolling on the ground. Being in the air, however, it may, by dropping a little as it rolls, make less, or, possibly, no progress in a latitudinal direction, though whether this is the case or not I am not sure.

To watch this curious action through the glasses is most interesting. Each time there is a perceptible second or two during which the bird remains completely reversed, back to earth and breast to sky. The appearance presented is equally extraordinary, whether it makes the half roll and returns, or goes completely round. I have sometimes seen rooks make a turn over in the air, but this was more a disorderly tumble, recalling that of the peewit, and, though striking enough, was not nearly so extraordinary as this orderly and methodical, almost sedate, turning upside down. The feat is generally performed four or five times in succession, at intervals of some seconds, during which the steady flight is continued. Most often it is done in silence, but sometimes, at each roll over, the raven cries "pyar," a penetrating and striking note.

Sometimes these ravens would roll in this manner whilst pursued by or skirmishing with a gull, and once I saw one of them do so during a curious kind of skirmish or frolic—it was hard to tell its exact character—with a hooded crow. Whether the hooded crow turned itself almost at the same time in a manner somewhat or entirely similar, I am not quite sure, but it struck me that it did do so. Of course, one may very easily just miss seeing the action of a bird clearly, especially if there are two or more together, and it is then, often, very annoying to be left with no more than an impression, which may or may not be correct. It is more satisfactory, almost, to see nothing than not to be sure, but both impression and doubt should be stated, for both are facts, and should not be suppressed. But on no other occasion have I seen a hooded crow behave in this way, though I have watched them often. Once, but only once, I saw one indulging in an antic which was sufficiently striking, but of quite a different character. This bird would spring suddenly from the ground, mount up almost perpendicularly to a moderate height, and then descend again on the same spot or close to it, making a sudden lurch and half tumble in alighting. It did this some dozen times, but not always in so marked a manner, for sometimes the mount or tower was not straight up from this spring—as a mountain sheer from the sea—but arose out of what seemed an ordinary flight over the ground. As it descended for the last time another crow flew up to and alighted beside it in a manner which seemed to express an entry into its feelings. This was in East Anglia, on the last day but one of February, and I look upon it as a premature breaking out of the nuptial activities before the birds had taken wing to their more northerly breeding-places. As to these aerial antics of the ravens, I doubt if they were strictly nuptial, on account of their performance of them whilst skirmishing with gulls, or with the hooded crow.

These two ravens were most devoted guardians of their young, and they pursued a plan with me—for I was the only intruder on their island—which was well calculated to blind me with regard to their whereabouts, and would certainly have succeeded in doing so, had not the nest been so openly situated, and such a conspicuous object. They took up their station daily—and in this they never once varied—at a point on the cliffs considerably beyond the place where they had built their nest, and which commanded a wide outlook. As I came each morning along the coast, which rose gradually, I became visible to them whilst about as far from their nest on the one side as they were on the other, and the instant my head appeared over the brow of the hill they rose together with the croaking clamour I have mentioned, and circled about round their own promontory. This strategy could hardly have been improved upon had it been carefully thought out by a man, for in the first place my attention was at once directed to the birds themselves, and then if the likelihood merely of there being a nest had occurred to me, that part of the cliffs from which they rose, and about which they wheeled, would have seemed the most likely place in which to search for it. No doubt, had the nest been well concealed, the birds would have done better not to have shown themselves, but conspicuous as it was, they could hardly have adopted a better plan of getting me away from just that part of the coast where it was situated.

I have spoken in the last chapter of the extreme boldness of the smaller of the two skuas, and how, whether in sport or piracy, he chases birds much larger than himself. It was, therefore, something of a surprise to me when I observed one morning this bold buccaneer being himself pursued by another bird. This was one of a pair of curlews, birds that are as the spirit of the sad solitudes in which they dwell. It is, indeed, more as a part of the scene—that treeless, mist-enshrouded waste beneath grey northern skies, which they emphasise and add expression to—than in themselves that one gets to consider them. Just thickening with a shape the dank, moist atmosphere, seeming to have been strained and wrung out from the mist and rain and drizzle, they are, at most, but a moulded, vital part of these. They move like shadows on the mists, when they cry, desolation has found its utterance. And yet, for all this, their general appearance, with their long legs and neck, and immensely long sickle-shaped bill, is very much that of an ibis—insomuch, that seeing them in this bleak northern land, has sometimes almost a bizarre effect. This should seem quite irreconcilable with the other, and yet, though it certainly ought to be, somehow it is not, so that, at one and the same time, this opposite bird brings a picture, by looking like an ibis, of Egypt and the South, and is likewise the very incarnation of grey skies, of mist and morass. So strangely can contradictions be reconciled in the mind, or rather so well and impartially can we grasp two aspects of a thing when neither concerns us personally.

When they stand or walk slowly and sedately these curlews hold their long, slender necks very erect, and it is this, with the beak, that gives them their ibis-like character. When they run they lower the neck, and the quicker they go the lower do they hold it. In taking flight they sometimes make a few quick running steps with raised body, as though launching themselves on the air; but at other times they will rise from where they stand without this preliminary. In flight they may be called conspicuous, at anyrate by contrast with the wonderful manner in which they disappear simply—"softly and silently vanish away"—when on the ground. This is by reason of their colouring, which on all the upper surface of the body and the outside of the wings is of a soft, mottled brown, which blends wonderfully with, or, rather, seems to become absorbed into the general surroundings of moor and peat-bog, so that they never catch the eye, and are simply gone the instant this is taken off them. But the plumage of the under surface of the body and of the inside of the wings is much lighter, and this becomes visible as the bird rises (as with the redshank), and alternates with the other as it flies around. It is thus—round and round in a wide circle—that a pair of them will keep flying when disturbed in their breeding-haunts. But though each bird is equally disturbed and anxious, and though their mournful cries answer each other like two sad complaining souls, yet they keep apart, and, on settling, do not run to each other. From the drear slope of a hill a wail goes up, and from another hill, or the cheerless hollow between, the sad sound is answered. Or one will fly wailing whilst the other wails and sits, or the two will follow each other along the ground, but without coming very near. Thus, in a kind of sad, solitary communion, they wail and lament, and so exactly is each the counterpart of the other, one might think that the prophet Jeremiah had been turned into a bird, which had subsequently flown asunder.

In flight the wings are for the most part constantly quivered, with a quick and somewhat tremulous motion, but sometimes the bird will glide with them outstretched, and not moving, just over the ground, before it alights, or make a steep-down descent holding them set in this manner, and so settle. There is also a trick or mannerism of flight which is graceful, and may be of a nuptial character. Rising to a certain height on quivering wings, they sink down, holding them extended and motionless. After but a short descent, they rise again in the same quivering way, and so continue for a greater or lesser space of time.

The note which they utter is, first, a melancholy "too-ee, too-ee, too-ee," then a much louder and sharper "wi-wi, wi-wi, wi-wi" (i as in "with"), and there are various other ones, one of which—if memory did not trick me—is just, or very, like a note which is but seldom heard of the great plover, "Tu—whi, whi, whi, whi, whi." This bird is itself a curlew, so that the resemblance can be understood. Its affinities with the oyster-catcher are (unless it is the other way about) less close; yet some part of the piping of the latter bird reminded me strongly of the "clamour," as it is called, of the former one. Sometimes, but more rarely, the mournful "too-ee, too-ee, too-ee" of the curlew is followed by a note as mournful, but louder and more abrupt. This sounded to my ear something like "chur-wer—whi-wee," but, of course, all such renderings are arbitrary, and more or less fanciful.

One of the strangest sounds that came to me on that lonely island was the courting-note of the male eider-duck. This varies a good deal, not in the sound, which is always the same, but in the duration and division of it. Sometimes it is one long-drawn, soft "oh" or "oo," more generally, perhaps, this is syllabled into "oh-hoo" or "ah-oo," and often there is a much longer as well as very distinct and powerful "hoo-oooooo." The sound seems always to be on the point of catching, yet just to miss, the human intonation, sometimes suggesting a soft (though often loud) mocking laugh, at others a slightly ironical or surprised ejaculation. But this human element only just trembles upon it and is gone. Rousing for a moment the sense of man's proximity with its attendant associations, these vanish almost in the forming, and are replaced by a feeling of unutterable loneliness and wildness. For what recalls, yet is far other, enforces the sense of the absence of that which it recalls. Yet this feeling changed too, or, rather, with it there came another as of the unseen world, also, I think, comprehensible, since what is almost, yet not quite, human must needs suggest fays, elves, elementals, and all their company. I loved the sound. If not quite music, it was most softly harmonious, and always, from first to last, brought into my mind with strange insistency, those lines in the Tempest:

"Sitting on a bank.
Weeping again the King my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air."

Then, of course, I was on Prospero's island, though, heaven knows, this bleak northern one was little like it. Thus can some poor bird that we murder, by an association merely, or called-up image, as well as by actual song,

"Dissolve us into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before our eyes."

It was some little time before I could be quite sure to what bird this strange note belonged. It seemed too poetical for a duck, though, indeed, an eider-duck is the poetry of the family. Also, it was difficult to locate, seeming to bear but little relation to the place or distance at which it was uttered. But I soon found that whenever there were eider-ducks I heard the note, whereas I never did when they were nowhere about. At last—quite close in a little bay, as though they had come there to show me—I "tore out the heart of their mystery." It was a lovely sight. Even the female eider-duck, sober brown though she be, has a most pleasing appearance, but the male bird is beauteous indeed. In the pure white and deep, rich black of his plumage he looks, at first, as though clothed all in velvet and snow. There are, however, the green feathers on the back of the head and neck, which do not look like feathers at all, but rather a delicate wash of colour, or as though some thin, glazed material—some finest-made green silk handkerchief—had been tied round his head with a view to health by the female members of his family. And although at first, with the exception of this green tint, all that is not the richest velvet black looks purest white, the eye through the glasses, growing more and more delighted, notices soon a still more delicate wash of green about the upper parts of the neck, and of delicate, very delicate, buff on the full rounded breast just where it meets the water. These glorified males—there were a dozen of them, perhaps, to some six or seven females—swam closely about the latter, but more in attendance upon than as actually pursuing them; for the females seemed themselves almost as active agents in the sport of being wooed as were their lovers in wooing them. The actions were as follows:—The male bird first dipped down his head till his beak just touched the water, then raised it again in a constrained and tense manner—the curious rigid action so frequent in the nuptial antics of birds—at the same time uttering that strange, haunting note. The air became filled with it, every moment one or other of the birds—sometimes several together—with upturned bill would softly laugh or exclaim, and whilst the males did this, the females, turning excitedly, and with little eager demonstrations from one to another of them, kept lowering and tending forwards the head and neck in the direction of each in turn.

As there were a good many females in this "reunion," the numbers of the males about any one of them at one time was not great. Some of them were attended by only one cavalier or left quite lonely for a time—but all kept shifting and changing. The birds kept always swimming on, and were now all together, now scattered over a considerable surface of water. Sometimes two males would court one hen, who would then often demonstrate between them in the way I have described. Often, however, the male birds are in excess of the females, and sometimes there will be only one female to a number of males, who then press so closely about her that they may almost be said to mob her, though in a very polite manner. There are then frequent combats between the males, one making every now and again a sudden dash through the water at another, and seizing or endeavouring to seize him by the head or scruff of the neck. The two then struggle together till they both sink or dive under the water. Shortly afterwards they emerge separately, and the combat is over for the time. During, if not as a part of, these nuptial proceedings, the birds of both sexes will occasionally rise in the water and give their wings a brisk flapping. They may also occasionally dive as a mere relaxation, or to give vent to their feelings, at least so it appeared to me.

The female eider-duck—as far as I could observe—does not utter the curious note, but only a deep quacking one, with which she calls to her the male birds. It appeared to me that she would sometimes show a preference for one male over another, and also (though of this I cannot be so sure), a power of dismissing birds from her. But if she really possesses such a power, she cannot very well assert it when closely pressed upon by a crowd of admirers. I noticed, too, and thought it curious, that a female would often approach a male bird with her head and neck laid flat along the water as though in a very "coming-on disposition," and that the male bird declined her advances. This, taken in conjunction with the actions of the females when courted by the males, appears to me to raise a doubt as to the universal application of the law that throughout nature the male, in courtship, is eager and the female coy. Here, to all appearance, courtship was proceeding, and the birds had not yet mated. The female eider-ducks, however—at any rate some of them—appeared to be anything but coy. As time went on and the birds became paired this curious note of the males became less and less frequent, and at last ceased, a proof, I think, that the note itself is of a nuptial character, and also that the birds at the time they kept uttering it were seeking their mates.

I regret that I was not able to observe the further breeding or nesting habits of these interesting birds. A few of the females may have laid before I left the island, but the greater number were still on the water. One day I put one up from the heather, upon which I lay down and waited. Soon a pair of them—both females—flew round me and alighted together not far off. Both then lay or crouched in the heather at a few yards from each other. Later, whilst watching from the coast, I saw two female eiders walking side by side at a slight distance apart. At intervals they would pause, stand or sit for a little, and again jog on together. These birds must, I think, have been selecting a place in which to lay their eggs, and if so, it would seem that they like to do this in pairs. I also saw a male eider-duck sitting for a considerable time amidst the heather right away from the sea. It is, of course, impossible to mistake the sexes after the males have assumed their adult plumage, and, moreover, this bird subsequently flew down into the little bay just beneath me. I say this because it is authoritatively stated that the male eider-duck never goes near the nest. It is probable that a week or so later this bird could not have sat where he was without being near to a nest at any rate; and, moreover, what should take the male bird from the sea, or its immediate coast, at all, if it were not some impulse appropriate to the season? This and a statement made to me by a native in regard to this point, which went still further against authority, makes me wish that I had been able to see a little more. As it is, I have only a right to ask with regard to this one male eider-duck, "Que diable allait il faire dans cette galere?"

It is difficult to tire of watching these birds, ducks, yet so wonderfully marine. The freedom of the sea is upon them, far more than Aphrodite they might have sprung from its foam—it is of the male with his snowy breast that one thinks this. One cannot see them and think of a pond or a river—yet, always, they are so palpably ducks. It is delicious to see them heave with the swell of the wave against some low sloping rock—lapping it like the water itself—and then remain upon it, standing or sitting—living jetsam that the sea has cast up. They ride like corks on the water, they are the arch of each wave and the dimple of every ripple.

Eider-ducks feed by diving to the bottom of the sea off the rocks where it is shallow, and getting there what is palatable. Probably this is, in most cases, eaten under water, but whilst, as a rule, emerging empty-mouthed, they occasionally bring up something in their bill, and dispose of it floating on the surface. In one case this was, I think, a crab; in another, some kind of shell-fish. Their dive is a sudden dip down, and in the act of it they open the wings, which they use under water, as can be plainly seen for a little way below the surface. This opening of the wings in the moment of diving is, I believe, a sure sign that they are used as fins or flippers under water, and that the feet play little or no part.

Birds, amongst others, that dive in this way are—to begin with—the black guillemot.

"Looking down from the cliffs into the quiet pools and inlets, one can see these little birds—the dabchicks of the ocean—swimming under water and using their wings as paddles, perfectly well. Instantly on diving they become of a glaucous green colour, and are then no longer like things of this world, but fanciful merely, suggesting sprites, goblins, little subaqueous bottle imps, for their shape is like a fat-bodied bottle or flat flask. Great green bubbles they look like, and so too but—larger and still greener—do the eider-ducks." In their small size and rounded shape, in their deariness, their pretty little ways and actions, in everything, almost, these little black guillemots are the marine counterpart of the dabchick or little grebe. It is pretty to see them, a dozen or so together. They pursue each other under the water—in anger, I think, but it has the appearance of sport; it is a joyous anger. They seem all in a state of collective excitement, and out of this one will make a sudden dart at another, who dives, and the pursuit is then alternately under or on the water, and sometimes just skimming along it on the wing, exactly as dabchicks do. Yet the black guillemot is a fair flier, having to ascend the precipices, and the dabchick too, for the matter of that, can if he chooses rise into the air and fly seriously. There are three modes of delivering the attack in fighting. In the first two the one bird either just darts on the other when quite near, in which case there may be a slight scuffle before either or both disappear, or flies at him over the water from a greater or lesser distance and often very nearly gets hold of him, but never quite. Invariably the other is down in time, if it be only the justest of justs. The third plan, which is the most rusé, is for the attacking bird to dive whilst yet some way off, and, coming up beneath his "objective," to spear up at him with his bill. And so nicely does he judge his distance that he always does come up exactly where the swimming bird was,—not is, for this one is as invariably gone. Yet this plan must sometimes be successful, though I did not see a case in which it was. At least, I judge so by the precipitation with which the bird on the water when he saw the other one dive—as he always did, and divined his intention—flew up and off to some distance. In just the same way have I seen the great crested grebe rise up and fly far over the glassy waters of the sun-bathed lake—but still more precipitately, and, indeed, in disorder, for he rose not alone from the surface but also from the well-aimed spear-point of his successfully-lunging antagonist. Whether the little dabchicks also, as well as the crested grebes, attack each other in this manner, I cannot from observations say, but from the relationship it would seem probable.

 

Crested Grebe

 

Razorbills also dive briskly, opening the wings and with a kick up, as it were, of the legs and tail. If one sits on a height and they come sufficiently near inshore to look down on them at an acute angle, one can follow their course under the water, often for a considerable time. One remarks then that the wings are moved both together—flapped or beaten—so that the bird really flies through the water. In flight, however, they are spread straight out without a bend in them, whereas here they are all the while flexed at the joint, being raised from and brought downwards again towards the sides in the same position in which they repose against them when closed. These birds—and, no doubt, the other divers—dive not only to catch fish, but also for the sake of speed. I have seen them when travelling steadily along the shore duck down and swim or fly like this, in a straight line and but just below the surface of the water, always pursuing the same direction, and seeming to have no difficulty in guiding themselves. The speed was very much greater than when they merely paddled on the surface. Thus we may see, perhaps, how such birds as the great auk and the penguins came to lose the power of flight. They could fly in two ways, either through the air or the water. The first—as long as they retained it at all, probably—was much the quicker; but the other was quick enough for their purposes, and the effort required to rise from the water was thus dispensed with. These razorbills dived in order to get more quickly to some point for which they were making. They might have got there still sooner by flying, but the time saved was evidently not worth that effort to them. But the power of flight might be long retained by a bird—though useless to it in other respects—owing to its habit of laying its eggs on otherwise inaccessible ledges of the rock.

When three or four razorbills are swimming together, it is common for one of them to dive first, and for the rest to follow in quick succession, sometimes so quick that the order in which they go down, and the succession itself, can only just be followed. They must keep together under the water as well as above it, since they will often emerge so, after some time, and at a considerable distance.

The guillemot dives more or less like the razorbill, but I have not been successful in tracing him under the water.

There remains the puffin. "I have been able to follow the puffin downwards in its dive, and at once noticed that the legs, instead of being used, were trailed behind, as in flight, so that the bird's motion was a genuine flight through water, unassisted by the webbed feet. With the razorbill, I was not able to make this out so clearly, for the legs are black, and the eye cannot detect them under the water, as it can the bright vermilion ones of the puffin (one wonders, by the way, if the latter play any part under water such as the white tail of the rabbit is supposed to do on land), though I could see that just in diving they were brought together and raised, so as to extend backwards in the same way. Penguins also trail the legs like this in diving, only giving an occasional paddle with them, whilst the wings are in constant motion."

It would seem, therefore, that those diving birds which swim with their wings under the water only use their feet in a minor degree, and that they go down with a quick, sudden duck, or bob, and in the act of opening their wings. On the other hand, cormorants, shags, and mergansers, birds which do not use their wings in this way, dive in a quite different manner. Instead of the sudden, little, splashy duck, as described, they make a smooth, gliding leap forwards and upwards, rising a little from the water, with the neck stretched out, and wings pressed close to the sides, to enter it again, beak foremost, like a curved arrow, thus describing the segment of a circle. Their shape, as they perform this movement, is that of a bent bow, and there is the same suggestion in it of pent strength and elasticity.

The shag is the greatest exponent of this school of diving, excelling even the cormorant—at least I fancy so—by virtue of his smaller size. He leaps entirely clear of the water, including even, for a moment, his legs and feet. This seems really a surprising feat, for, as I say, the wings are tightly closed, so that, by the force merely of the powerful webbed feet, he is able to throw himself bodily out of the sea. It must be by a single stroke, I think, for the motion is sudden and then continuous. The bird may, of course, have been in ordinary activity just previously, so that some slight degree of impetus may be supposed to have been already gained, but this is unnecessary, and the leap is often from quiescence. The merganser dives like the shag or cormorant—though the curved leap is a little less vigorous—and swims, like them, without using the wings. His food being fish, instead of getting deeper and deeper down till he disappears, like the eider-duck, he usually swims horizontally, sometimes only just beneath the surface, and, as he comes right into the shallow inlets, where the water almost laps the shore, he can often be watched thus gliding in rapid pursuit. Though I saw all his turns and efforts, I never could see either the fish or the capture of it—supposing that this took place. If it did, the fish must each time have been swallowed, or at least pouched, beneath the surface, as the bird never emerged with one in his bill. There are, of course, several different species of merganser and goosander. I cannot be quite sure of the identity of the bird which has given rise to these observations—I think it was the red-throated merganser—but, no doubt, the ways and habits of all the species are either identical or nearly so.

It is interesting to find the little dabchick of our ponds and streams diving sometimes in the manner of the shag and cormorant, though, of course, tempered with his own little soft individuality. I have this note of him, taken in the frost and snow of a cold December day whilst he sported in his little creek just a few feet in front of me. "He gives a little leap up in the water, making a graceful curve, a pretty little curl, as he plunges. One sees the curve of his back—which is something—as he spring-glides down. The action is that of the cormorant, but, rendered by himself, made dabchicky. Of course he is in the water all the time; he does not shoot right out of it. There is far less power and energy. It is a star-twinkle to a lightning-flash, a floss ringlet to a bended bow." And again: "He is diving now very prettily, with a graceful little curled arch in the air before going down."

I say that the dabchick sometimes dives like this, for he has many ways of doing so, and it is not very often that he will repeat the same thing twice in succession. Sometimes he dips so smoothly and still-ly down that one seems hardly to miss him from where he was; there is just a swirl on the stream—which seems, now, to represent him—and that all but silent sound, so cool and pleasant, as of water sucked down into water. Or, swimming smoothly down the current, he stops suddenly, brings the neck stiffly and straightly forward, with eye fixed intently, severely on the water—piercing down into it as though making a point—and then down he goes with a click, almost a snap, flirting the water-drops up into the air with his tiny little mite of a tail. I have seen it stated, I think, that the dabchick has no tail, or that he has no tail to speak of. I shall speak of it, for I have seen it enter largely into his deportment. When, as I say, he dives like this, suddenly, it may be flirted up with such vigour that, mite as it is, it will send a little shower of sparkling drops to 20 feet away or more. It may be said that it is not so much the tail as the whole body that does this. I say that the tail has its share, and a good share, too—more, perhaps, than is quite fair. At any rate, I have seen the prettiest little drop of all whisked right off the tip of it, and the sun shining more upon that one than any of the others—and that, I think, is having a tail to speak of. But when swimming along quite quietly, the dabchick's tail, instead of being cocked or flirted up like the moor-hen's, is drawn smoothly down on the water so as not to project and thus interfere with its owner's appearance, which is that of a little, smooth, brown, oiled powder-puff, "smooth as oil, soft as young down." The dabchick, therefore, has a tail, and knows how to regulate it.

Between these two extremes of the dabchick's manner of diving, and independently of the little curled leap à la cormorant, there are infinite gradations, as well as all sorts of mannerisms and individualities. But in all these I do not distinctly remember to have seen him throw out his wings in the act of going down.

I should be pretty sure, therefore, that he swims only and does not fly (if this expression is permissible) under water, if I did not seem to remember having once seen him do so, as I lay with my head just over the river's bank and he passed underneath me. But it was years ago; I have no note, and my memory may very likely have deceived me. Possibly both in regard to this, as well as the way in which he dives, the dabchick may be in a transition state. His multifariousness in this latter respect seems to render this likely. The shag, if I mistake not, never dives in any other way than that which I have described, unless he is really alarmed, when he disappears instantaneously and in a dishevelled manner.

The moor-hen, also, may follow no fixed plan in his diving, for I have certainly seen him using his feet only under water, and I believe I have also seen him using his wings. Though this, too, was many years ago I ought not to be mistaken, as the incident made such a deep impression on me at the time. I was standing on the bank of a little creek, or streamlet, running out of a reedy moor-hen-haunted river. The creek itself, however, was clear where I stood, and all at once a strange object passed right in front of me, swimming beneath the surface. It was a moor-hen, but the wings used in the way I have been discussing—a thing to me quite unexpected—seemed to give it an entirely unbirdlike appearance, and surprised me into thinking for the moment that it was some kind of turtle. The legs, I believe, were also used, alternately in a kind of long, gliding stride, and may just have touched the mud at the bottom. This, however—and I believe the moor-hen often walks in this way along the bottom rather than swims—would seem to make its use of the wings at the same time all the more unlikely. I have but my memory, which, as evidence after so many years, is of little value. In all such matters what is wanted is a note taken down at the time. As to the actual dive down of the moor-hen, whenever I have seen it it has always been a sudden duck, sometimes in a rather splashy and disordered manner, but whether the wings were ever thrown partly open I am not able to say. I have noted cases, however, where they certainly were not, and this again makes it more likely that the moor-hen in diving does not use the wings at all. I do not know that I have ever seen the moor-hen dive, unless it was in alarm from having seen me; and with regard to this a question arises which, I think, is of interest—to what extent, namely, does diving enter into the moor-hen's ordinary habits, how often does it do so of its own free will? Possibly it may differ as to this in different localities. Jefferies, for instance, writes as though it were always diving. Yet I have watched moor-hens latterly, at all seasons, and for several hours at a time, without having once seen them do so; so that from seeing them thus au naturel, and without any suspicion of my proximity, I might have come to the conclusion that they were not diving birds at all. As it is, I am inclined to think that they rarely dive except to avoid danger, and only then when surprised and as a last resource. For instance, if a moor-hen sees one from the smallest distance it flies to the nearest belt of reeds, but if one appears quite suddenly on the bank just above it—as sometimes happens—it will then often dive. Even here, however, according to my own experience, it is more likely to trust to its wings; so that, as it seems to me, the habit under any circumstances is only an occasional one, and may, therefore, be in process either of formation or cessation. If we look at the moor-hen's foot, which shows no special adaptation to swimming, but a very marked one for walking over a network of water-herbage, the former of these two suppositions seems the more probable. The bird from a shore and weed-walker has become aquatic, and is probably becoming more so. If the habit of diving is only becoming established, it is possible that some localities might be more conducive to its quick increase than others, and it would be interesting, I think, if observers in different parts of the country would make and record observations on this point.

The chariness of the moor-hen in diving is the more interesting because the coot, which belongs to the same family, has the same general habits, and has evidently become aquatic by the same gradual process, dives frequently, and is accustomed to feed upon weeds which it pulls up from the bottom of the water. Here is an instance, in which it will also be seen that the coot's manner of diving is very much more formed than the moor-hen's, which may be said to be archaic. "It dives down and reappears, shortly, with some dank weediness in its bill, which it proceeds to peck about and swallow on the surface. Then it dives again, comes up with some more, which it likewise eats, and does this several times in succession. After five or six dives it comes up with quite a large quantity, with which it swims a little way to some footing of flag and reed, and on this frail brown raft it stands whilst picking to pieces and eating 'the fat weed' which it has there deposited. Having finished, or selected from it, it swims to the same place again and continues thus to dive and feed, each time coming up with some weeds in its beak, which I see it eat quite plainly. It is charming to see this, and also the way in which the bird dives, which is elaborate, studied, and yet full of ease. Rising, first, from the water in a light, buoyant manner as if about to ascend, balloon-like, into the air, it changes its mind in the instant and plunges beneath the surface, having, as it goes down, a very globular and air-bally appearance. It is like the sometime dive of the dabchick, but with more deportment and less specific gravity. The dabchick is an oiled powder-puff, the coot a balloon, the dabchick a small fluff-ball, the coot an air-ball."

From this it would seem as though the coot belonged to the cormorant school of diving, disagreeing in this with the moor-hen, to whom it is so closely allied, whilst agreeing with the dabchick, as well as the great crested grebe and other birds—the cormorant itself—with whom it has no close affinities. But this cannot be said without considerable qualification, for, though the description I have given is from the life and seen over and over again, yet at other times the dive down of this bird is so totally different that no one who had seen only the one could think it capable of the other. In the winter, coots swim about in flocks, and then one may see first one little spray of water thrown up as a bird disappears, and then another. That is all; there is the spray and there is no bird, whereas just before there was one. Indeed, I think it is a quicker dive than any that I have seen a sea-bird make, only equalled, perhaps (or even, perhaps, not quite equalled), by that of a really alarmed dabchick. As for the process of it, it is undiscoverable, the eye catches only the spray-jet, which is pretty and always just the same. But there is no disorder, no higgledy-piggledy mess. It is something which you can't see, but which you feel is the act of a master. Here again, then, the coot in diving is quite the moor-hen's superior. The dive of the latter bird is, as we have said, archaic. It is unpolished, and greatly wants form and style. Now, the coot is fin-footed—that is to say, the skin of the toes is extended so as to form on the interspace of each joint a thin lobe-shaped membrane. In this formation, which likewise distinguishes the grebes, we may, perhaps, see the gradual steps by which the feet of some more purely aquatic birds have become webbed. As the lobes became larger they would have met and overlapped, and from this to an actual fusion does not seem an impassable gulf. This, however, is only a supposition. It seems more likely that the web has been, in most cases, gained by the extension of the slight membrane between the toes, at their junction with one another. Possibly the lobes on the toes of the coot were gained before he became a swimmer, and served the purpose of supporting him on mud or floating vegetation, or, as perhaps is more probable, they may have been developed in accordance with the double requirement. At any rate, if we suppose this structural modification to have been effected after the bird became in some degree truly acquatic, then, though this does not prove that the period at which it became so was longer ago than in the case of the moor-hen, which has remained structurally unaffected, yet it, perhaps, renders it likely, and we can, by supposing so, understand why the one bird should dive habitually and the other only occasionally.

The great crested grebe exhibits the same feature of variety in his manner of diving as does his sprightly little relative the dabchick. Sometimes it is quite informal—he just spears the water before disappearing, sinking in it a little before he spears—but at others there is the cormorant leap upwards as well as forwards, before going down. Of course, no more than with the dabchick is there the same tremendous vigour, the wonderful supple virility which lives in the leap of this strong-souled sea robber. I say "of course," for anyone who has watched these birds—the most ornamental, perhaps, of any except swans that swim the water—must have remarked a quiet, easy, one may almost say languid, grace—something suggestive of high birth, of "Lady Clara Vere de Vere"-ness—in their every, or almost every, action. Masters of grace indeed they are, and consummate masters of diving. I do them wrong descanting upon them here so scantily, but space, my constant and persistent enemy, will have it so. I have not even sufficient to make them any further apology.

 

 

1. Scott, however, credits the Highlanders—I mean the rank and file—with an artistic appreciation of the scenery amidst which they lived (see "Rob Roy"). I should bow to such an authority, but I confess I find it hard to believe.