With nature and a camera

Chapter III. The birds and fowlers of St Kilda (continued)

Young razorbill

We saw a great number of Razorbills' eggs lying about under boulders and ledges, and here and there came across a newly-hatched young one, which was making its worldly wants known by vigorous chirping. The one figuring in our illustration was photographed at this place; and its comical, over-sized looking feet will, no doubt, suggest to anyone unacquainted with the peculiar development of the lower extremities of the young of this species a freak of the camera, not uncommon, I believe, when dealing with feet.

Young Razorbill

By working his way carefully along a narrow ledge which jutted out over the sea some two hundred feet below, my brother was enabled to stalk a number of Guillemots and Razorbills, and make the picture below.

[page 106]

At this place I noticed several Guillemots' eggs just showing from pools of rain-water, formed by the peculiar upward slope of the outer edge of the rock beds. In two or three cases a warm egg was lying on a dry flat ledge an inch or two above the immersed one, and so similar were the two in ground colour and markings that I was at once reminded of the assertion of cragsmen in various parts of the country that although this species lays eggs varying very widely in coloration, an individual Guillemot invariably produces a similar type of egg from year to year. I do not think that there could be any doubt but that the eggs in the water had originally been laid on the ledge where the warm eggs were resting, and that they had accidentally rolled away and been lost to their owners for hatching purposes. The St Kildans whom I consulted upon the matter were of the same opinion, and corroborated the statements of other cragsmen in regard to an individual bird always laying a similar type of egg.

After the usual difficulties of re-embarkation had been successfully surmounted we steered for Soa, which we found to be the most awkward island to effect a landing upon which we had yet encountered. Martin in writing of it says: "It is dangerous to ascend; the landing is also very hazardous both in regard of the raging sea on the rock that must be climbed." He contented himself by watching both done, a fact which, I am inclined to think, only lessened his appreciation of the difficulties.

[page 107]

Guillemots on cliff

[page 108]

We got ashore, after a great deal of scrambling and excitement, at a place where the rocks sloped at a much more acute angle than the roof of most houses, and were in addition covered by a crop of extremely slippery sea-weed. From this point we were all tied together, Alpine fashion, and began to ascend the almost perpendicular cliff by the aid of crannies and ledges, which were in many places not more than an inch in depth, and barely afforded a sufficient resting-place for our toes or finger-tips. On arriving at a place where the precipice was broken up into huge boulders and shelves which admitted of easier and safer progress, the men began to give us an exhibition of their skill with the fowling-rod amongst the Guillemots and Razorbills. Some of their captures were so clever that it appeared as if they exercised some kind of destructive charm over the poor birds.

My brother commenced to busy himself alter getting a photograph of a Fulmar Petrel sitting on her egg, and selecting a bird in a particularly picturesque situation commenced to stalk her very carefully. At last he came to a place where, by dint of perseverance and the exercise of considerable ingenuity, he was enabled to fix the legs of his camera into the interstices of the rocks in such a position as to enable him to focus the bird at close range. She was very uneasy at first, but by working very deftly he allayed her fears, and she sat an absolute picture against the bold mass of overhanging broken crags. My brother was in a perfect ecstasy of delight when putting in his slide, but, alas! just as he was in the very act of exposing the plate, a dog, belonging to one of the men, popped its great ugly head round a corner close to the Fulmar, and she instantly sprang into the air and was gone. That cur had good reason to thank its lucky stars that it got off the Isle of Soa again alive. If the forcible English with which its intrusion was greeted in stentorian tones could have been translated into Gaelic for its edification I am persuaded it would have entertained but an ill-opinion of itself.