Mingulay of the Cliffs 



stantly be heard. The young of the razorbill is comparatively 

 quiet; the guillemot's chick is the possessor of a voice of 

 remarkable penetrating power, which even at a great distance 

 can be heard shrilly above the clamour of the adult birds. 

 One of the most crowded colonies of the guillemots was on 

 a precipitous stack — Arnamul by name — separated by only a 

 few yards from the main island on its western side, and 

 where the clustered thousands of birds on the ledges, snow 

 white with guano, were a remarkable sight. On the grassy 

 summit of this stack greater black-backed gulls had nested, 

 though their young by now were in many cases full-fledged 

 and fairly strong on the wing. Already the kittiwakes were 

 gathering in flocks preparatory to the southward migration. 



On the afternoon of this day we watched for some time a 

 colony of pufiins at the south-west end of the island. A 

 strong breeze blew up the face of the cliff, and the puffins 

 loved to soar past, looking absurdly pleased with themselves 

 and indeed like caricatures of a bird as one might present 

 it on the pantomime stage ! In some cases these soaring 

 puffins had their parrot-like bills full of sand eels and, when 

 we remained motionless, they gradually summoned up 

 courage, and then at last dived into their nesting burrows, 

 emerging with great caution a few minutes later, after hav- 

 ing fed the solitary youngster. On one occasion a puffin 

 was standing at the entrance to the burrow when a harmless 

 kestrel passed overhead, the puffin thereupon diving into the 

 security of his hole with ludicrous haste. During the after- 

 noon a peregrine flew low across the Atlantic, passing near 

 to the puffin colony, when every single bird hurried out to 

 sea, alighting on the water, where they remained for some 

 time after the enemy had passed. 



August 7 was the one really fine day during our stay on 

 the island, though it gave us little sun for the purpose of 

 photography. On that morning, from the high ground of 

 Mingulay, hill and island for many miles lay clear around 

 us. Some thirty miles south, Skerryvore and its lighthouse 



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