Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
It appears, however, to be rather irregular in its breeding habits, nesting from the end of May to July or August. In Burhou the Storm Petrel bred mostly in holes in the soft black mould, which was also partly occupied by Puffins and Babbits, but occasionally under large stones and rocks.
Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls, terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St. Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the gentlest of these wild sea-fowl.
As far as I can make out the Manx Shearwater does not breed in any part of the Channel Islands, but being rather of nocturnal habits at its breeding-stations, and remaining in the holes and under the rocks where its eggs are during the day, it may not have been seen during the breeding-season; but did it breed anywhere in the Islands more birds, both old and young, would be seen about in the early autumn when the young first begin to leave their nests; and the Barbelotters would occasionally come across eggs and young birds when digging for Puffins' eggs.
All of the boatmen also, with whom I have been about at various times, agree that the Curlews do not breed in the Islands, though they are quite aware that they remain throughout the year, and as many of them, in spite of the Guernsey Bird Act, are great robbers of the eggs of the Gulls, Puffins, and Oystercatchers, all of which they know well, they would hardly miss such a fine mouthful as the egg of the Curlew if it was to be found.
All this was more than two hundred years ago. He naturally went up to The Gregory at this hour, because it was then that he met the other boys, and caught puffins by being lowered over the cliff. The agent of the island employed the boys, and paid them a sixpence for every dozen birds, that he might sell the feathers.
The cliff-breeding species Guillemots, Razorbills, and Puffins are difficult to investigate because individuals vary so little, and the sexes resemble one another so closely; yet, despite these difficulties, we can gain some idea of the general purport of their activities.
And high tide mark was the cliff base in fine weather, in foul, the waves would lash and dash and beat fifty feet up, there was not a guillemot ledge lower than eighty feet, puffins, razorbills and kittiwakes, who always build above the guillemots did not seem to come here at all, keeping to the seaward rocks and the coast line where the cliffs drew further away from the sea.
Do you know, one evening when old Isaac came to see me, I made him laugh about the puffins till the tears ran down his face. It was with showing him that old stuffed puffin, and telling him how the puffin gets into a rabbit-burrow, and when the rabbit comes back they set to and fight, and the puffin generally gets the best of it with having such a great hooked nose. Isaac was so funny.
And the sisters Kabelaw and Sigokow; they are the worst liars in all the village, besides being stupider than puffins. There, that will be enough for our first feed. When these have stuffed, we can have more. Too many at once makes much cooking and little talk. Go, my child."
The way led round the chasm and downward, sometimes approaching the face of the cliff, where the inquisitive eyes and red bills of the puffins peered out of the crevices, and whole rows of auks and kittiwakes were thrown into violent agitation by the sight of the intruders; and sometimes leading back to the dark interior of the chasm.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking