CHAPTER XL 



SHORE BIRDS IN LATE DECEMBER 



A PENETRATING south wind brought to the bleak 

 Northumbrian coast gloom and haze so that all view 

 seawards was obscured. But a morning eventually 

 breaks with — a most rare thing at this season of mid-winter 

 — a dead calm prevailing and the air once more clear. Away 

 to east lie the group of the Fame Islands, where during the 

 season of their nesting countless thousands of seabirds make 

 their home ; and northward, Holy Island and its castle stand 

 out against the horizon. Along the shore a very heavy surf 

 breaks, and above the rollers hangs a mist of salt spray. 

 Where the sands end and a reef of half-submerged rocks juts 

 out into the sea bird life is plentiful. Quite close inshore a 

 company of long-tailed ducks are diving energetically. The 

 long-tailed duck during the winter months obtains almost all 

 its food by assiduous diving, often to considerable depths. 

 It feeds mainly on mussels and cockles, but periwinkles are 

 also eaten. The birds are very regular in the duration 

 of their dives, and on one occasion I timed one — a drake 

 — which remained submerged for three consecutive dives 

 a period of exactly thirty-seven seconds. I have also 

 noticed that when a duck and drake are diving together 

 the drake remains submerged rather longer than the duck. 

 The long-tailed duck is found along our coasts as a winter 

 visitor only. In late spring the flocks migrate north to their 

 nesting-grounds in Iceland, Spitzbergen, the north of Norway 

 and Lapland. 



The strong flood tide carries the feeding duck rapidly past 

 me, but their places are taken by others, for the "sea 



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