With nature and a camera

Chapter VII. Sea-birds and their haunts

The Bass Rock

The Bass Rock is one of the finest Gannet breeding stations in the British Isles. It is now under the proprietorship of Mr Colin Mackenzie, of Canty Bay Hotel, near North Berwick, who owns every facility for conveying visitors in almost any sort of weather across the mile and a half or so of sea dividing it from the mainland.

We have been twice on the rock during the last two or three years, but on neither occasion have we been favoured by good weather for photography. Our second visit was paid at six o'clock in the morning on July 7th, 1897, when we found the Solan Geese still busy building, or perhaps, more strictly speaking, repairing their nests, for I saw one hard at work adding to its nursery of seaweed, although it contained a good-sized young one.

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It was quite comical to watch one of these great birds come creeping along the edge of a cliff, in the face of a stiff breeze, with an immense tangle of weed hanging from its bill in such a way as to form a kind of rudder, whose eccentric flappings made its bearer wobble strangely in flight.

Gannets on the wing

I saw two birds steal the materials of a neighbour's nest, which they pulled almost to pieces during her temporary absence, caused by our picture-making efforts; and close to the same place we witnessed a terrible battle, which ended in both the contestants rolling in a confused heap right over the cliff.

Gannets with young are very easy birds to photograph, as they will allow the naturalist to walk about amongst them with no more protest than a vigorous peck at his legs. In one case a bird in the foreground spoilt a picturesque group which my brother desired to take, and, as she would not leave her young one, I was obliged to push her off the cliff with my cap folded tightly round my right hand.

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Gannets on Bass Rock

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I was greatly astonished at the length of time such large birds could remain poised over one particular spot, with their wings outstretched and motionless. Of course, it was managed by taking advantage of the pressure of a strong and steady breeze striking the face of the cliff and then being deflected upwards, but the grace and apparent ease of it were truly marvellous.

My brother was anxious to obtain a picture showing a good crowd of Gannets in it; and when he descended for that purpose to the very edge of the cliff, and began to stalk the birds (with his camera in front of him) from hedge to ledge - off any of which the slightest ship meant a headlong plunge of a hundred and fifty feet into the sea below - I saw one of the men who had accompanied us in the boat turn away, and heard him mutter to himself, "Venturesome divel! he'll never go off the Bass alive."

While we were at work a flock consisting of several hundreds left the rock, and, flying out into the Firth of Forth, went through a mazy sort of aerial waltz, which lasted half an hour.

The Bass Rock is a much easier and safer place to visit than Ailsa Craig, but, except in the case of Gannets, it is not so rich in seabird life.

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Common gull's nest

Puffins at home

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Whilst walking round the loose sides of the latter, Puffins scuttle out of every conceivable and inconceivable hole and cranny, and are easily caught as they tumble down the steep hillside leading to the edge of the cliff, where they gain wing and fly away out to sea. At the Bass, Tammy Norie, as they are called, were by no means numerous last summer, and hundreds of forsaken burrows, stuffed almost full of wind-drifted feathers, gave the place the appearance of an old worked-out mining district.

A Puffin is a grotesque-looking bird at any time during the breeding season, but to watch three or four standing on a piece of timber bobbing up and down in a fairly rough sea is an extremely comical sight.

Great numbers of these birds breed at the Saltee Islands, where we obtained the photograph from which the picture below has been reproduced.

On the small islands forming part of the Inner and Outer Hebridean groups, we have met with the Great Black-backed and Common Gulls, and their nests, eggs, and young, but nowhere in large numbers.