The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
FLIGHT AND FANCY
WOULD God my home were here, that I might make a lifelong and continuous study of the wild sea-bird life about me! What more should I want, then? except, indeed, a better climate, which is not a matter of culture. Of all that civilisation has to give I value nothing much (that I can get) except books, and those I might have here, at least in a moderate profusion, "the hundred (or so) best" ones—of my own choice bien entendu; the devil take any other man's. "Oh, hell! to choose love by another's eyes." But all my own writers—with never an impudent, pert critic amongst them to échauffer ma bile—awaiting me at home, with these birds—these dear birds—to look down upon outside, and I think I might be happy, as things go. But with such a strange blending of tastes and desires as nature has put upon me, how can I ever hope to be, to any satisfactory extent? What I want, really, is the veldt, or Brazilian forests, or Lapland, or the Spanish Marisma, with the British Museum library round the corner; but, as Cleopatra says of two other things, "they do not go together."
"Well, here's my comfort" for a time—my half-measure of content. Oh, is there anything in life more piquant (if you care about it) than to lie on the summit of a beetling cliff, and watch the breeding sea-fowl on the ledges below? In the Shetlands, at least, it is possible to do this in perfect safety, for the strata of the rock have often been tilted up to such an extent that, whilst the precipice formed by their broken edges is of the most fearful description, their slope, even on the landward side, is so steep that when one has climbed it, and flung oneself full length at the top, one's head looks down—as mine does now—as from a slanting wall, against which one's body leans. To fall over, one would first have to fall upwards, and the knowledge of this gives a feeling of security, without which one could hardly observe or take notes. The one danger lies in becoming abstracted and forgetting where one is. Those steep, green banks—for the rock, except in smooth, unclimbable patches, is covered with lush grass—have no appearance of an edge, and I have often shuddered, whilst plodding mechanically upwards, to find myself but just awakened from a reverie, within a yard or so of their soft-curled, lap-like crests. But I think my "subliminal," in such cases, was always pretty well on the watch, or—to adopt a more prosaic and now quite obsolete explanation—the reverie was not a very deep one.
At any rate, here I am safe, and, looking down again from my old "coign of vantage" of two years before, the same wonderful and never forgotten—never-to-be-forgotten—sight presents itself. Here are the guillemots, the same individual birds, standing—each in the old place, perhaps, if the truth were known—in long, gleaming rows and little salient clusters, equally conspicuous by their compact shape and vividly contrasted colouring; whilst both above and below them, on nests which look like some natural, tufted growth of the sheer, jagged rock, and which touch, or almost touch, one another, sit hundreds and hundreds of kittiwakes, the soft bluey-grey and downier white of whose plumage, with their more yielding and accommodating outlines, make them as a tone and tinting of the rock itself, and delight with grace, as the others do with boldness. Seen from a distance all except the white is lost, and then they have the effect of snow, covering large surfaces of the hard, perpendicular rock. Nearer, they look like little nodules or bosses of snow projecting from a flatter and less pure expanse of it. An innumerable cry goes up, a vociferous, shrieking chorus, the sharp and ear-piercing treble to the deep, sombrous bass of the waves. The actual note is supposed to be imitated in the name of the bird, but to my own ear it much more resembles—to a degree, indeed, approaching exactitude—the words "It's getting late!" uttered with a great emphasis on the "late," and repeated over and over again in a shrill, harsh, and discordant shriek. The effect—though this is far from being really the case—is as though the whole of the birds were shrieking out this remark at the same time. There is a constant clang and scream, an eternal harsh music—harmony in discord—through and above which, dominating it as an organ does lesser instruments—or like "that deep and dreadful organ-pipe, the thunder"—there rolls, at intervals, one of the most extraordinary voices, surely, that ever issued from the throat of a bird: a rolling, rumbling volume of sound, so rough and deep, yet so full, grand, and sonorous, that it seems as though the very cliffs were speaking—ending sometimes in something like a gruff laugh, or, as some will have it, a bark.
This marvellous note is the nuptial one of the guillemot, or, rather, it is that, swelled and multiplied by the echoes to which it gives rise, and which roll and mutter along the face of the precipice, and mingle with the dash of the waves. The effect is most striking when heard at a little distance, and especially across the chasm that divides one precipice from another. Under these circumstances it is less the actual cry itself than what, by such help, it becomes, that impresses one. Uttered quite near, by some bird that stands conspicuous on the ledge one looks down upon, the sound is less impressive, though still extraordinary enough. It can then be better understood, and resolves itself into a sort of jodel, long continued and having a vibratory roll in it. It begins usually with one or two shorter notes, which have much the syllabic value of "hǎrāh, hǎrāh"—first ǎ as in "hat," with the accent on the last syllable, as in "hurrah." Very commonly the outcry ends here, but otherwise the final "rah" is prolonged into the sound I speak of, which continues rising and falling—which is why I call it a jodel—for a longer or shorter time, the volume of sound being increased, sometimes, to a wonderful extent. It ends, usually, as it began, with a few short, rough notes which may be called a bark, as the other is called a bray, though to neither is there much resemblance if we make either a dog or a donkey the basis of comparison. Altogether it is one of the strangest, weirdest sounds that can be imagined, and nobody, not accustomed to such surprises, would suppose it could issue from the lungs of so small an animal as a guillemot.
I made a strange error in regard to the utterer of this note when I first came to the Shetlands, and the history of it will show either what a fool I was (and am, in that case), or else how possible it is for such mistakes to arise, even with great care and close and continued observation—I should prefer it to show the latter. I thought it was impossible that I could have been mistaken, but now that I know I was I can see how it happened perfectly. At that time I knew nothing about the matter, for though I love natural history I hate the "British Bird" books, nor am I often in the way of being told anything, since, to be frank, I am as much a hermit as I am mercifully permitted to be: therefore, when I first heard the "bray" of the guillemot, as it is called, I was lost in wonder, and as it came but rarely, and never from any of the birds upon the one particular ledge that I watched day after day—often for many hours at a time—I never suspected its true origin. These particular birds never uttered any sound more extraordinary than a kind of "ik, ik, ik!" and this though they were constantly fighting, whilst the performance of the nuptial rite was frequent amongst them. The note which so astonished me never came from very near; I heard it, as I have said before, only occasionally, and it always seemed to come from a part of the rock where a few pairs of fulmar petrels were sitting. When I mentioned it to the watcher, who occupied the little sentry-box on the ness, during the daytime, when I was out, leaving it for me to sleep in at night, he said nothing about guillemots, but expressed his opinion that the sound was produced by these fulmar petrels. Now the fulmar petrel, though I have never met with any reference to it, does utter, when on the breeding-ledges—or at least, it does in the Shetlands—a note which is sufficiently marked and striking, a sort of angry, hoarse, gruff interjection—guttural too—several times repeated, and sounding sometimes like a laugh. Often too, these notes are not divided, or else are so quickly repeated that they sound like one, continuously uttered for some little space of time. As I now think, I must sometimes have caught this note at the beginning or end of the cry of the guillemot, and put it down as a part of it. Then, when, with this idea in my mind, I watched the petrels at but a few yards' distance, and heard them uttering the note they do utter, to my heart's content—swelling out the throat and rolling the head at one another, the while, in the way I have described—I was so foolish as to think that this was the cry that I thought so wonderful, but not at its best, and that the real one, when I heard it again in the distance—for, as I say, it never sounded very near—was the same one at its best. With this false idea in my head I went home, and when somebody, assuming the character of a "Fulmar Petrel" himself—assured me that I had mistaken the guillemot's note for his own, I was as convinced that he did not know what he was talking about, and that I did, as I am now to the contrary.
On one point, however, I am clear, and cannot possibly be mistaken, since I have verified it only in these last few days, having come, in fact, partly to do so—at least that made another motive for my journey. The fulmar petrel, if it does not bray like a guillemot, has at least a nuptial note—and that a sufficiently striking one—of its own, which is uttered by both sexes as they lie on the rock, but never, in my experience, whilst flying. Moreover, just as the vocal powers of the guillemot are now marvellously increased—or rather multiplied—compared with what they were some weeks earlier in the year, on my last visit, so, if I may trust my own memory—which, however, I never do trust—those of the fulmar petrel have suffered a corresponding diminution. I attribute both these facts to one and the same cause. At the earlier date the guillemots were in the very midst of their domestic duties, so that those feelings proper to the courting period were in abeyance. Now, however, they are free, and, under the influence of returning emotion, have become noisy again, as no doubt, at the very beginning, they were noisier still. Though their physical energy may not be sufficient to enable them to rear another brood, that, I am sure—and there is plenty of evidence of it—is what they fed like—there is dalliance and a "smart set" morality. But with the petrels, at the same time, things had not gone so far—some, if I remember rightly, had not even yet laid their egg—and so their nuptial vociferations were more energetic than they are now—or, at any rate, I think they were. Here, then, was a mistake, and I have shown clearly how it came about. Some perhaps—especially those who get all their information from books, and feel as if they had found it out for themselves—may admit no excuse for it, my explanation notwithstanding; but, for my part, I think it is easy to make mistakes. Had but one of the guillemots on my own ledge been so good as to bray for me, all would have been well, but never a word did any of them say except "ik, ik, ik!"
There was another point on which "Fulmar Petrel" took exception to what I said about him—or rather to what I seemed to say. In view of his oil-squirting and other unangelic propensities, he thought the descriptive phrase "half angel and half bird," which formed the title of my article, was not quite suitable to him. Well, I may tell him now that I never thought so either—titles, as most authors nowadays have good cause to know, are not always one's own. I never compare birds to angels, for fear of thinking slightingly of the latter, and though I admit that, in the hands of a skilled artist, a pelican's wings on a pair of human shoulders may make a pretty enough combination, and that the whole human body need not look so heavy and unmanageable as it, no doubt, would be in reality, still, as far as flight is concerned, I confess I think it takes a bird to beat a bird. Angels are out of it in my opinion, or, if they are not, at least my powers of imagination in regard to them are. I shall always think of "Fulmar Petrel" as flying much better than the best of them, though, as his habit of squirting oil does not in the least degree lessen his aerial grace and beauty, as far as that alone is concerned I see no reason why he should not be half an angel, at any rate, if not a whole one.
Yes, here are powers indeed! What buoyant ease! What marvellous, least-action grace! Surely no bird has ever flown before. This—this only—is flight; for a moment, at any rate, one forgets even the nightjar. And yet all these storm-riding, blast-defying powers belong to one of the most placid-looking, delicately dove-like beautiful beings of all air's kingdom. How soft is its colouring! How gentle its look! Was there ever a more "delicate Ariel" than this?
One cannot, indeed, watch for long the flight of the fulmar petrel without becoming dissatisfied, or at least critical, in regard to that of other sea-birds. The larger gulls grow hopelessly coarse and heavy; the kittiwake is not what it was, something is gone from the bold corsair-like sweeps of the Arctic skua, and even in the seeming-laboured grace of the tern the eye begins to dwell more on the labour and less on the grace. All these birds are bodies: the fulmar petrel more suggests a soul. Something of this it owes to its colouring, which, though approaching to blue above, and of the purest-looking white below, yet has in it that exquisitely smoked or shadowed quality which allows of no glint or gleam, avoids all saliency, and almost seems alien from substance itself. It blends with the air, of which it seems to be a condensation rather than something introduced into it. Yet most lies in the flight. In this there is conveyed to one a sense, not so much of power over as of actual partnership in the element in which the bird floats, as though it had been born there, as though it might sleep and awake there, as though it had never been, nor ever could be, anywhere else. It is, I suppose, the small apparent mechanism of the flight that gives this impression, the absence, or the ease, of effort. Sliding, as it were, from the face of the precipice, and often from the most towering heights of it, the thin cleaver-like wings are at once, or after a few quick, flickering vibrations, spread to their full extent, and on them the bird floats, sweeps, circles, now sinking towards the sea, now cresting the summit of the cliff,[1] but keeping, for the most part, within the middle space between the two. Ever and anon it sails smoothly in to its own rocky ledge, pauses above it, as though to think "My home!" then, with another quick shimmer or flicker of the thin shadow-wings, sweeps smoothly out again, to enter once more on those wonderful down-sliding, up-gliding circles that have more of magic in them, and are more drawn to charm, than had ever a necromancer's.
This light flickering of the wings, as I have called it, for they cannot be said to flap or beat—even quiver is too gross a term for so delicate a motion—is a characteristic part of the fulmar petrel's flight. They move for a moment—for a few seconds more or less—in the way in which a shadow flickers on the wall, and then the bird glides and circles, holding them outspread and at rest, opposing their thin, flat surface, now to this point, now to that, by a turn of the head or body, but giving them no independent motion. Then another flicker, and again the gliding and circling. When spread thus, flat to the air, the wings have a very thin, paper-knifey appearance. The simile does not seem worthy either of them or of the bird, but as it is continually brought to my mind, I must employ it, albeit apologetically. It is the shape of them that suggests it. Their ends are smooth and rounded, and they are held so straight that they seem to be in one piece, without a joint; though, just when the wind catches them freshly, and drives the bird swiftly along, they are turned slightly upwards toward the tips, through the momentary yielding of the quills. Strange though it may seem, this straightness—almost stiffness—of the wing-contour adds to—nay, makes—the grace of the fulmar petrel's flight, and the pronounced bend at the joint, which, in the gull and kittiwake, causes the forepart of the wing to slope backwards in a marked degree, looks almost clumsy by comparison. The reason, I think, is that the petrel's straight, thin, flat-pressed wings look so splendidly set to the wind, suggesting a graceful ship—lateen-rigged—in fullest sail, whilst the others seem timidly furled and reefed, by the side of them. Sometimes, indeed, the wings do bend just a little—for, after all, they have a joint—but the straight-set attitude is more germane to them, and soon they assume it again, shooting forward so briskly, yet softly, that one seems to hear a soft little musical click.
And thus this dream and joy of glorious motion, this elemental spirit of a bird, floats and flickers along, cradled in air, looking like a shadow upon it, sweeping and gliding, rising and falling, in circles of consummate ease. No, this is not dominion, but union and sweet accord. There is no in-spite-of, no proud compelling, here. Lighter than the air that it rides on, the bird seems married to it, clasps it as a bride.
- ↑ The idea that the fulmar petrel never flies over the land is a delusion. I have often seen it do so, though that is not its habit. It goes but a trifling way, however, cutting off a cape or corner, and returns almost immediately.