COMMON GUILLEMOT 



Urta trotle 



HE Guillemot frequents the open sea during the greater 

 part of the year, sleeping on the water at night, and 

 during the day diving after the shoals of the small fish on 

 which it feeds. It is a wandering species, and often strays 

 hundreds of miles from its breeding-haunts. Though a 

 plain-looking, simply-plumaged bird, the Guillemot is 

 perhaps the most interesting of all our sea-birds during 

 the breeding season. It is a widely distributed species, and breeds on most 

 of the sea-coasts of Great Britain where bold rocky cliffs and headlands or 

 steep rocky islands are found. 



The Guillemot is a very clever diver, and can generally escape a shot 

 fired at it when sitting on the water by diving at the flash of the gun. Its 

 food consists almost entirely of small fish, generally herring fry, but it will 

 also eat shell-fish, crustaceans, and sea insects. Off the Fame Islands the 

 Guillemot may be seen in thousands following some shoal of tiny herrings, 

 and it is extraordinary to watch the evolutions of the dense crowd, more than 

 a third of which is usually under water at a time. They make a wonderfully 

 attractive picture, with their black and white plumage gleaming in the sun 

 against the dark green of the sea, rising and falling on the waves, sometimes 

 sitting up and flapping their wings, but ever following the shoal of fry and 

 busily diving after them. The Guillemot usually arrives on the surface of the 

 water with its prey held across the middle in its bill ; then stretching up its 

 neck, it turns the fish and swallows it head first. They travel immense 

 distances to their feeding -grounds in the early mornings, and at sunset 

 during the breeding season they may be seen flying in long strings at a 

 tremendous pace just above the waves, making for their nesting-station. 



The Guillemot is a very silent bird on the water, only an occasional 

 VOL. n. T 71 



