The Kittiwake Gull. io s 



" The most interesting period of the Kittiwake's life," writes Seebohin, " is 

 when it is engaged in the duties of rearing its young. A Kittiwake colony is 

 one of the most charming sights a rock-bound coast can afford. Early in spring 

 the birds return to their old nurseries, visiting them almost daily until the work 

 of building or restoring the nests commences. The places this Gull prefers are 

 steep cliffs — rocks which fall sheer down to the water — on the ledges and shelves 

 of which it places its somewhat well made nest. If the cliffs are tenanted by 

 other sea-birds the Kittiwakes usually select the lowest part of the rocks, often 

 making their nests a few feet from the water ; but in other situations where they 



have the rocks to themselves they utilise every suitable situation the 



largest colony of birds which I have ever seen is that at Svoerholt, not far from 

 the North Cape in Norway, on the cliffs which form the promontory between the 

 Porsanger and the Laxe Fjords. It is a stupendous range of cliffs, nearly a 

 thousand feet high, and so crowded with nests that it might easily be supposed 

 that all the Kittiwakes in the world had assembled there to breed. The number 

 of birds has, however, been greatly exaggerated supposing the non- 

 breeding birds to be ten to one, surely a very high estimate, we only reach five 

 and a half million birds .... it is the custom to fire off a canon opposite the 

 colony ; peal after peal echoes and re-echoes from the cliffs, every ledge appears 

 to pour forth an endless stream of birds, and long before the last echo has died 

 away it is overpowered by the cries of the birds, whilst the air in every direction 

 exactly resembles a snow-storm, but a snow-storm in a whirl-wind. The birds fly 

 in cohorts ; those nearest the ship are all flying in one direction, beyond them 

 other cohorts are flying in a different direction, and so on, until the extreme 

 distance is a confused mass of snowflakes. It looks as if the fjord was a huge 

 chaldron of air, in which the birds were floating, and as if the floating mass 

 was stirred by an invisible rod." In the words of Faber : — " They hide the sun 

 when they fly, they cover the skerries when they sit, they drown the thunder of 

 the surf when they cry, they colour the rocks white where they breed." 



When fledged the young have the front of the head, the throat, 

 chest and entire under surface white ; the hind head and the nape of the neck 

 greyish-black, forming a demi-collar ; a spot in front of the eye and a patch 

 behind the ears of the same colour, the demi-collar, followed by a baud of white, 

 distinctly washed with lavender grey and by "a broad black band with irregular 

 edges, across the secondaries, and for some distance on each side of the neck " 

 (Saunders) ; back and wings deep lavender grey tipped with brownish black ; the 

 outer edge of the wing, and wing coverts mottled with black — forming a dark 

 alar bar ; the inner secondaries showing a long patch of black on the outer 



Vol. VI R 



