At Home with Wild Nature 



does not confine its attention entirely to gulls and the 

 fish they catch. It will readily consume offal as I 

 proved by watching one old bird feed another will kill 

 and eat any small bird it can catch, or devour eggs. At 

 one nest I found the head of a Manx shearwater, and 

 the number and variety of feathers lying round was 

 astonishing. 



The Richardson, or Arctic skua, a much smaller 

 member of the same family, is guilty of exactly the 

 same kind of barefaced daylight robbery, and will also 

 kill and eat wounded birds and devour eggs whenever 

 it can find them. If a small gull, such as the kittiwake, 

 should prove obstinate and refuse to give up the fruit 

 of its labours the Arctic skua will in sheer resentment, 

 upon occasion, slay the unfortunate creature. 



As an example of this bird's adaptability in regard 

 to diet, I may mention that old Henry, the watcher on 

 Hermaness, taught a pair nesting close to his hut in 

 1913 to live upon Scotch scone, for which both birds 

 would fly to the little wooden shanty whenever he 

 whistled for them. 



The smallest robber of the air breeding in the British 

 Islands to-day is perhaps the red-backed shrike or 

 " butcher bird," which frequently slays the helpless 

 fledgelings of such species as hedge sparrows, chaffinches, 

 blue tits, tree pipits, and other frequenters of bush and 

 hedgerow. Whilst trying to locate a shrike's nest one 

 day late in June, I saw the old cock rise to the topmost 

 spray of a thorn bush close to me with what appeared 

 to be a short, stumpy chrysalis hi his bill. To my 



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