SIDE IvlGHTS ON BIRDS 



Sometimes a bird bearing a resemblance to a 

 very large house-martin flits by— the forked tail, 

 the disc of white, and the swallow-like flight, all 

 seem familiar. This is the storm petrel, which, 

 together with the rarer fulmar, nests in the 

 cliffs. The white-tailed eagle was at one time 

 a regular visitor, but its numbers have been 

 reduced almost to vanishing point. 



Both the cormorants, the green and the black, 

 the former largely predominating, congregate at 

 points on the splintered crags, and their nests 

 may be marked, forming regular rookeries. It 

 is, indeed, well-nigh impossible to visit any part 

 of the Shetland coast-line without meeting with 

 the skart, as the green cormorant or shag is locally 

 named. Perched on prominent peaks, sometimes 

 with outstretched wings like an eagle on a lectern, 

 they deck the higher rocks. On the narrow 

 almost submerged skerry, where the marine 

 tangle rises and falls to the beat of the sea, one 

 may see rows of their motionless snake-like heads. 

 In the more sheltered bays many may be marked, 

 swimming to and fro, and as the boat draws 

 nearer, diving with a graceful curve of head and 

 neck, to come up far away. 



Rivalling, if not exceeding, the skart in numbers, 

 is the black guillemot — the ' ' tystie " of Shetland. 

 In every tiny bay and harbour, and under the 

 lea of every broken and pinnacled stack of rock, 

 wherever, in fact, the troubled waters can find 

 peace, are little family parties of " tysties." 

 The old birds, with their deep, black plumage, 

 and broad bar of white across the wings, can 

 easily be distinguished from the white-freckled 

 birds of the year. Now one dives suddenly, and 

 at times may be seen literally flying under water, 

 the beating of the pinions having much more to 

 do with its propulsion than the strokes of its red- 



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