Part 10

The Puffins and Petrels are now the only birds nesting on the summit of the Rock, not a single descendant of the one hundred thousand Gannets which, according to Bryant, occupied the top of the Rock in 1860 now being found there. To-day this species nests only on the less accessible border ledges on the face of the Rock, where they are grouped in colonies. Most of them were incubating, but several were brooding their young, which ranged in size from the naked, black-skinned, newly hatched chick to those that had acquired the white, swan’s-downlike first plumage.^{97}

With the exception of two white, black-spotted birds, all the Gannets seen, both on Bird Rock and Bonaventure, were in the adult white plumage, and if, as has been stated, this plumage is not gained until the bird is two years old, the question arises, What becomes of the immature birds during the nesting season?

[Illustration: 97. Young Gannet.]

An estimate of the number of individuals representing the seven species just mentioned as nesting on the Rock, is perhaps not warranted by my brief experience, nor should I attempt to give one, did not my photographs permit me to count with a fair degree of accuracy the number of birds in view on that part of the Rock shown in these pictures. Time was lacking to make, from a boat, a series of photographs of the Rock which would include all its bird-inhabited portions, and the appended estimates are based on the results of a count of the birds in photographs of about one half the occupied area. Murres, Razorbills, and Puffins can not be distinguished in these pictures and are therefore grouped under one head, it being calculated that about from fifteen hundred to two thousand individuals of these species make the Rock their home. Of this number probably not more than one hundred are Puffins, while the Common and Brünnich’s Murres (_Uria troile et U. lomvia_) outnumber the Razorbills at least four to one.

[Illustration: 98. Gannets. × 3. An enlarged detail of No. 99.]

The Kittiwake population of the Rock probably numbers between six hundred and eight hundred birds; of Gannets, there are perhaps left only fifteen hundred of the more than one hundred thousand birds which Dr. Bryant writes of as living on the top of the Rock alone; and of Petrels, not more than fifty.

When on the Rock I should have said that it was tenanted by at least ten thousand birds, and I was not a little surprised to find that the evidence furnished by my photographic records gave a total of about four thousand birds. However, the sight of four thousand birds domiciled in one small islet is sufficiently impressive to increase the pulse beat of the most phlegmatic traveler; and even if this estimate be too large, the Rock’s merits as a bird resort are too substantial to be affected by any decrease in it which truth demands.

To return to an account of the day’s doings, the light, as has been said, was unfavorable for photography, and the time was devoted to collecting and preparing specimens and making a hurried survey of the bird rookeries on the Rock, with results briefly set forth above; but late in the afternoon the sun gave indications of its whereabouts behind the clouds, and I immediately substituted the camera for the scalpel, and had Keeper Bourque lower me in the crate in order that I might secure photographs of the birds observed on our ascent.

Neither the stability of the crate nor its constant turning were conditions which a photographer would choose, and, without the twin-lens it would have been impossible to secure pictures of the Kittiwakes^{85} and Murres, who in a surprised but unalarmed manner regarded me from their nests on the Rock, in some instances at a distance of not more than six feet.

At ten o’clock at night I visited the west end of the Rock to see and hear the Petrels that nest there. The casual visitor to Bird Rock would be quite unaware of the presence of these birds; indeed, one might live there for years without knowing that Petrels made it their home. As far as the Rock is concerned, the birds are strictly nocturnal; but as usually only one bird—either male or female—is found on the nest, it is supposed that its mate is at sea feeding. If this supposition be true, I am at a loss to account for the entire absence of the birds during the daytime. Why should they not return to their nests before nightfall? And if, as stated, the sea bird takes the place of the nest bird, does the latter always feed at night and the former by day, or do they sometimes change about, thus making the same individual both nocturnal and diurnal in habit?

However this may be, I had no sooner reached the part of the Rock tenanted by the Petrels than I was given the most surprising evidence of their activity during the night. From the ground at my feet and on every side there issued the uncanny little song—if I may so call it—of birds doubtless sitting at the mouths of their burrows. It was not like the cry of a sea bird, but a distinctly enunciated call of eight notes, possessing a character wholly its own, and not to be compared to the notes of any bird I have ever heard, though at the time it impressed me as having a certain crowing quality. Such a call might be uttered by elves or brownies. Occasionally I saw a blur of wings as a bird passed between me and the lighthouse.

[Illustration: 99. Gannets on nests.]

Later, the fog, which had been scudding over us in wisps and ribbons, closed in, and through the medium of a guncotton bomb the Rock gave notice of its presence to the mariners who might be in the surrounding waters. Captain Taker heard the dull, booming voice as with disappointing promptness he came to take us from the Rock, and early in the morning we heard his fog horn from the gray bank below telling where the Sea Gem, as yet unseen, was anchored.

In the hope of better weather I deferred photographing the Gannets, the only accessible colony of which was on the north side of the Rock; but forced now to make the best of the existing conditions, I took the twin-lens, fastened one end of a rope about my waist, and gave the other end to Captain Bourque, in order that, unhampered by thought of fall, I might creep along the slippery ledges where the birds nested.^{99}

The fog had lifted, but the day was gloomy, and only the white plumage of the birds and a wide-open lens yielded successful photographs.

It was my first visit to the big white birds, who, in spite of persecution, have as yet acquired but little fear of man, and as with hoarse croaks and a dashing of wings they pitched onto the narrow ledges near me, their size and boldness, in connection with my somewhat insecure footing, aroused in me a feeling which I had not experienced when surrounded by the smaller Murres, Auks, and Puffins. The main nesting ledge was out of reach below, but small groups of birds were nearer, and these I photographed at a distance of about ten feet.^{100}

These Gannets are magnificent birds, and when on the wing exhibit a combination of power and grace excelled by no other bird I have seen. They are most impressive when diving, as with half-closed wings, like great spearheads, they descend from a height of about forty feet with a force and speed that takes them wholly out of sight, and splashes the water ten feet or more into the air. Cory graphically compares the sight of a distant flock of Gannets diving at a school of fish, to a continuous stream of beans poured from a pail.

[Illustration: 100. Gannet on nest. Two nests in foreground.]

Captain Bourque tells me that Gannets are no longer used for bait by the codfishers; but when one realizes that only two colonies of these grand birds, comprising a few thousand individuals, are all that are left of the species in this hemisphere, one could wish for these survivors something more than negative protection.

In the afternoon the weather gave promise of clearing, and entering the crate we were swung out over the edge of the Rock on the first stage of our homeward journey. The collections and outfit were placed aboard the schooner, while in a dory we attempted to visit Little Bird; but before we had rowed a quarter of a mile the fog crept back, Great Bird slowly disappeared from view and became only a periodic boom in the gray wall, and we returned to the schooner without delay.

The sail to Bryon, where we passed the night, apparently demonstrated Captain Taker’s possession of the sense of direction. In spite of a head wind, violent squalls, and a strong tide, he made his way through the fog with perfect assurance and dropped anchor at a particular lobster buoy, visible less than fifty yards from the schooner, but which in effect he appeared to have seen before we left the Rock. It was a remarkable bit of seamanship.

In Bird Rock the Canadian Government possesses an object of surpassing interest, one which, south of Greenland, is unique in eastern North America. It is the obvious duty of the proper authorities to preserve it, and the ease with which this can be done makes further neglect inexcusable. The appointment of the light keeper as a game warden is the only step required to make Bird Rock a safe retreat for sea fowl, until, in some future geologic age, it shall have yielded to the relentless attack of the waters.

LIFE ON PELICAN ISLAND, WITH SOME SPECULATIONS ON THE ORIGIN OF BIRD MIGRATION

The study of isolated colonies of birds, particularly of those situated on islands, throws much light on several as yet little-understood problems of bird migration.

With mainland birds of general distribution—the Robin, for example—the individual is, except when nesting, lost in the species, and unless the bird be peculiarly marked who can say whether the Robins which nest with us one year are the same as those of the preceding season—where our summer Robins winter, or our winter Robins summer? and who can tell whether the first Robins to come in the spring are our summer resident birds, or early migrants _en route_ to more northern nesting grounds?

In the case of certain island-inhabiting birds, however, some of these questions may be answered with a fair degree of certainty. Thus Ipswich Sparrows are known to nest only on Sable Island, off the Nova Scotia coast, and we are warranted in believing that the same birds, fate permitting, return to their sandy home year after year. Gannets (_Sula bassana_) nest in the western hemisphere only on three islets in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and it is probable that the surviving individuals return each year to their former breeding grounds. The Terns of Muskeget and Penikese, forming the only two large colonies of these birds remaining on the Atlantic coast, return to their island retreats every spring; and actuated by this same love of home, the Brown Pelicans of the Indian River region of eastern Florida annually repair to a certain small island for the purpose of rearing their young. Many similar cases might be cited in confirmation of the belief—supported also by isolated observations on the mainland—that birds nest in the same locality throughout their lives, and, on occasion, may even occupy their previous season’s nest.

As regards the manner in which these island-inhabiting birds arrive at the nesting grounds, as far as our recorded information goes, it seems that without relation to latitude they appear each spring with remarkable regularity, not straggling back a few at a time, but sending on an advance guard, which usually remains only a short time and is followed, a few days later, by apparently the entire colony.

Thus, Mackay writes of the Terns of Penikese: “In 1893 the Terns arrived on May 10th, in the night, an advance guard of several hundred being noted early the following morning at daylight; these all left before noon of the 11th, and on the morning of the 12th, before daylight, immense numbers had again arrived.... In 1896 the Terns commenced to arrive during the night of May 9th; they were in evidence at daylight on the 10th, and continued to arrive all day, and on the morning of the 11th the usual colony had taken possession of the island.” (Auk, xiv, 1897, p. 284.)

The migration of the island-nesting Terns in the tropics is apparently no less regular. Scott states that the Noddy arrived in the Tortugas “on April 20th in large numbers, but remained only two days; after inspecting their breeding grounds, all departed to return about a week later in greatly increased numbers, when breeding was almost at once commenced.” (Auk, vii, 1890, p. 306.)

These insular colonies, however, not only throw much light on certain existing phases of bird migration, but they also furnish us with a clew to the origin of migration itself. This is especially true of those species whose lives are passed in the tropics or subtropics, and which we are accustomed to class as nonmigratory or as “permanent residents,” but which are as regularly migratory, in the real meaning of the word, as if they summered within the arctic circle and wintered south of the equator.

Their movements are apparently in no way influenced by climate nor, at this season, are they governed by the food supply, but prompted solely by the annually recurring physiological change which fits both sexes for reproduction, they repair to a certain islet, perhaps in the heart of their range, with the one object of finding a suitable nesting site in which their eggs may be laid and young reared in safety; and this object accomplished, they desert the locality, where they may be unknown until the following spring.

Divested, therefore, of the complications which ensue when in studying the migration of birds the questions of food and climate must be considered, we have here the problem reduced to its simplest terms; and in the desire for seclusion during the breeding season which induces birds to conceal their nests, if possible perhaps near by, but if necessary after a journey of varying length undertaken especially for the purpose, we have a good and sufficient cause for the origin of bird migration.

An attempt to explain the present manifestation of the migratory movement involves a study of the climatic changes to which our globe has been subjected. No doubt many birds controlled by “heredity of habit” make semiannual journeys which at one time were necessary, but under existing circumstances are no longer required. Why, for example, should the Bobolink winter south of the Amazon, while its ally, the Red-winged Blackbird (_Agelaius phœniceus_), does not leave the eastern United States? I have, however, no intention of writing an essay on bird migration, and these thoughts are presented merely as preliminary to a study of the life of Pelican Island, of a visit to which they are in part the outcome.

Pelican Island is situated midway between the northern and southern extremities of Indian River, near the eastern shore of a key which here makes the river about three miles wide. It is triangular in shape and contains about three acres of ground, on which grow a few black mangroves, a cabbage palm or two, and great patches of grass; but at least one fourth of its surface is bare ground.

On one of the islands of the near-by Narrows a few pairs of Brown Pelicans are said to have nested, but, with this exception, Pelican Island doubtless forms the nesting ground of all the Pelicans of Indian River.

The question why the birds should select this particular island in preference to the scores of others which, to the human eye, appear to be equally well suited to their needs, is a difficult one to answer. Perhaps no true selection is shown by the existing birds, which, as with many other island-inhabiting species, may be the survivors of a once more widely distributed species, who have been preserved by the protection afforded by their island home. Such a colony might owe its beginning to a pair of birds who were the true selectors of the site of the future colony. The preserving influences of the situation were potent from the beginning. The first brood reached maturity without mishap, and in response to the instinct which prompts a bird to return to the region of its birth, they, with successive generations, came back and eventually established the prevailing conditions.

The attachment of these Pelicans for their home affords a remarkable illustration of the power of habit. Ever since the Indian River region has been subject to annual invasion by tourists, among whom the man with the gun is conspicuous both by numbers and actions, the inhabitants of Pelican Island have been wantonly and, on occasions, brutally persecuted. Scarcely a day passes during February and March that one or more boat loads of tourists, perhaps from the mainland or a passing yacht, do not land on Pelican Island and thoughtlessly cause the death of many young birds by driving them from the vicinity of their nests; or, by frightening the brooding birds, they expose the newly hatched and naked nestlings to the roasting rays of the sun. The harm caused by these visitors, however, is not to be compared to that wrought by so-called “sportsmen,” who, in defiance of every law of manhood, have gone to Pelican Island and killed thousands of the birds simply because they afforded a ready mark for their guns. They had not even the excuse of a demand upon their skill, and must indeed have been very near the level of the brute to have found pleasure in killing birds which the merest novice with a gun would find it difficult to miss.

Perhaps even worse than this exhibition of pure savagery are the raids of the self-styled “oölogists,” who, in the name of science—save the mark!—have journeyed to Pelican Island with the express purpose of taking every egg they could lay their insatiable fingers upon, afterward to boast, in some journal devoted to reporting similar crimes, of the hundreds they had collected in so many hours.

So persistently have the Pelicans been molested that at times they have been foiled to desert their beloved island; but they have exhibited their attachment for it by establishing themselves on the nearest available islet, and on the first opportunity have returned to their native land.

It was in March, 1898, that my best assistant and I boarded the little sloop which was to take us to Pelican Island. Fortunately the birds were now in possession of their ancestral domain, and, as we approached, files of Pelicans were seen returning from fishing expeditions, platoons were resting on the sandy points, some were bathing, others sailing in broad circles high overhead. Soon we could hear the sound of many voices—a medley of strange cries in an unknown tongue. Arriving and departing on wings, the inhabitants of Pelican Island have little need of deep water harbors, and we were obliged to anchor our sloop about a hundred yards from the island and go ashore in a small boat.

[Illustration: 101. Pelicans on ground nests.]

No traveler ever entered the gates of a foreign city with greater expectancy than I felt as I stepped from my boat on the muddy edge of this City of the Pelicans. The old birds, without a word of protest, deserted their homes, leaving their eggs and young at my mercy. But the young were as abusive and threatening as their parents were silent and unresisting. Some were on the ground, others in the bushy mangroves, some were coming from the egg, others were learning to fly; but one and all—in a chorus of croaks, barks, and screams, which rings in my ears whenever I think of the experience—united in demanding that I leave the town. If I approached too near, their cries were doubled in violence and accompanied by vicious lunges with their bills, which were snapped together with a pistol-like report.^{102} As I walked from tree to tree, examining the noisy young birds that were climbing about the branches, I seemed to be passing from cage to cage in a zoölogical garden; and as I entered that part of the island where the nests were on the ground,^{101} every bird that could walk left its home, and soon I was driving a great flock of young Pelicans, all screaming at the tops of their voices.

[Illustration: 102. Interviewing a group of young Pelicans.]

[Illustration: 103. Among the Pelicans.]

The old birds, in the meantime, were resting on the water. They might have been unpleasant foes, but in their stately, dignified way they accepted the situation, and waited in silence for us to retire. Then they at once returned to their nests, and in a short time comparative quiet was restored on the island.

This is a sketch of life in the Pelicans’ metropolis as one sees it during a brief visit, and all the accounts of the island I have seen were based on just such an experience. Consequently, I shall relate here what was learned of the Pelicans and their home during four days passed with them.

[Illustration: 104. Head and pouch of Brown Pelican. From a fresh specimen.]

During no hour of the twenty-four did silence reign on Pelican Island; if I went on deck at midnight, the notes of some complaining or pugnacious young Pelicans, who in their sleep had come into too close quarters, were sure to be heard. But the Pelicans’ day began at early dawn, when I could distinguish the diagonal files of from two to a dozen birds solemnly and silently starting out for the fishing grounds. One might think that, like a boat’s crew, their strokes were controlled by a coxswain, as in perfect unison they all flapped their broad wings for about ten beats, and then spread them and sailed for as many seconds.

[Illustration: 105. Same as No. 104, seen from above, to show extent to which sides of the lower bill are spread.]

Generally they headed for the ocean, there to follow the line of the beach, sometimes high in the air, at others low over the curling surf, as their progress was aided or retarded by the wind. How far they went I can not say, but at a point ten miles north of Pelican Island many have been seen still winging their way to the northward, doubtless to some point where fish were abundant. Not once during the four days passed off Pelican Island did I see a Pelican fishing over the surrounding waters. It was not because they were lacking in fish, for they contained a plentiful supply of food; and I could explain the unexpected abstinence of the birds only on the supposition that the fish in the immediate vicinity of the nesting ground were left for the early efforts of the young birds before they were strong enough of wing to accompany their parents to distant fishing grounds.

Brown Pelicans fish at a height of from twenty to thirty feet above the water, not hovering, but flying slowly about, and without a moment’s pause plunging on their prey with a force which would produce serious results if the bird’s breast were not well padded with cellular tissue between the skin and the flesh.