BIRDS THAT CRASH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19048, 19 December 1923, Page 8

BIRDS THAT CRASH

LIFE STORY OF THE GUILLEMOT. Birds are able to perform such clever manoeuvres under the most trying conditions that it is not often that they fail, but I have seen them clash and also collide in the air. writes Oliver G. Pike, F.Z.A., in the Daily Mail. A collision is not often fatal. On the face on one of the great cliffs on the Scottish coast, where sea birde were passing and repassing in thousands, I saw a puffin collide with a companion. The birds met coming round a comer. There was only a fraction of a second for each to decide what to do, but in that moment each checked it? speed. They met breast-on, fell a few yards, then each wont on its way, not any the worse for the accident. When the gannet lands it (rios to travel against the wind, hut this is not always possible, and many times I have watched one of these great birds cpsh on the rocks near its nest. In many instances the bird simply had a gcod shaking, but in very bad landings the flier has bounced back and fallen to the beach beneath. Even after falling four hundred feet and hitting the base of the cliff with a resounding thump, the bird has struggled tip into a sitting posture and remained alive for several days. On the rocks beneath a steep cliff where there was a colony of garnets I have counted more than a dozen of these . unfortunate birds. The most sensational crushes that I have seen in the birds’ world have also taken place cn the cliffs. Young guillemots were the actors, and if they had been trying to do a stage turn they could not have performed a more startling feat. The youngsters were sitting on the bare rocks, for the parent guillemot makes no nest. They were about throe weeks or a month old, and were str! covered with soft down. Their wings had hardly appeared and -were of no use to them in an attempted flight, yet dozens of these babies launched themselves into apace from dizzy heights. They came tumbling down, head over tail, looking like living catherino whecls. Their wings, being useless, were not flapped and their plump bodies struck a ledge of rock fifty feet below. Now the” bounced off. fell as far again, and once more hit the rocks with a thud, only to continue their fall. And so they came down, some hitting the rocks many times before they eventually landed on the beach with u bump which one would have thought would have smashed them to pieces. But these amazing youngsters just picked themselves up. squeaked cheerfully as though they bad thoroughly enjoyed the journey, waddled slowly down towards the water, and then swam out and joined their companions. The parents followed these headlong plunges, joined their respective babies, and continued to feed them in their new surroundings.