Part 74

Eight species, all rare stragglers, remain to be mentioned: the broad-billed sandpiper, pectoral sandpiper, Bonaparte’s sandpiper, American stint, buff-breasted sandpiper, Bartram’s sandpiper, red-breasted snipe, and Esquimaux curlew. With the exception of the first, which breeds in northern Europe and winters in Africa, these are all American species, breeding in or near the arctic regions, and migrating in autumn to South America, in some cases as far south as Patagonia.

Roughly speaking, we may say that, of the thirty-four species of the snipe family described in most ornithological works as ‘British,’ seventeen or eighteen are breeders in or annual visitants to this country; six are occasional visitors--two or three of these are perhaps, annual visitors, but in very small numbers; and the remaining ten are all rare stragglers.

Arctic Tern.

Sterna macrura.

Bill blood-red; legs and feet coral-red; head and nape black; mantle pearl-grey; rump and tail white; under parts paler pearl-grey. Length, fourteen and a half inches.

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The tern has been called a sea-swallow, and he is certainly swallow-like in his slender figure, sharply forked tail, and aërial habits; but he is built on more graceful lines, with proportionately longer wings, and in his white and pearl-grey plumage is the more beautiful bird. The blood-red hue of the beak in the arctic tern gives that touch of bright colour which adds so much to the beauty of a species otherwise wholly black or white; it intensifies a black plumage, as we see in the blackbird and chough, and makes the white plumage seem more immaculate in its whiteness. The flight of the tern is unlike that of any other bird, whether of the sea or land: it is more airy, and suited to the pale, slender, aërial figure; buoyant and slightly wavering, it reminds one a little of the high, apparently uncertain, flight of some large-winged butterfly; and it is in perfect harmony, not only with the slimmer form, but with the idea of a being whose life is passed amid wind and mist and fluctuating wave. It is a rare pleasure to watch a number of these terns feeding in an inlet or bay, where the spectator can sit or lie on a cliff or jutting rock near to and on a level with the birds. They are not concerned at his presence, but, intent on their prey, pass and re-pass before him so near that their round, brilliant eyes may be distinctly seen. The blood-red, dagger-like beak is pointed downwards almost constantly as the bird gazes on the water thirty or forty yards below. All at once the buoyant flight is arrested, the bird hangs motionless in mid-air, the snow-white, forked tail expanded and depressed, the slow-moving, wavering wings rapidly vibrated. In such an attitude he reminds you less of a windhover than of the humming-bird, when that little feathered fairy is seen hovering motionless above the flowers on which its eyes are fixed. Suddenly the wings partly close, and the white figure drops plumb down, with such force as to send up a shower of foam and spray as it strikes on and disappears into the water, to emerge in a moment or two with a small fish in its bill.

The terns, of which there are five breeding-species in the British Islands, are all migrants, and come to us in spring. The arctic tern ranges farthest north: it is the most common species on the coasts of Scotland and its islands; its most southern breeding-station is at the Farnes, off the coast of Northumberland. It breeds in communities sometimes numbering thousands of birds. The nests are placed very near each other, often within half a yard, among scanty grass and herbage, or on the shingle and sand of the beach, and sometimes on the bare rock. Two or three eggs are laid, greatly varying in their ground-colour, olive, buff, greyish brown, stone, and other tints being found; and the spots and blotches of blackish brown and grey may be few or many. The young birds are at first covered with a yellowish down with dark brown spots, and are very active. When the nesting-ground is entered the birds rise up, and hover in a dense cloud above the intruder’s head, their united powerful screams producing an extraordinary noise, like that of the sea on a shingled beach when the withdrawing wave drags back the pebbles with shrill and grating sounds.

In September and October the arctic tern migrates to warmer regions.

Common Tern.

Sterna fluviatilis.

Bill, legs, and feet orange-red; entire plumage as in the arctic tern, except the lower parts, which are more nearly pure white. Length, fourteen and a quarter inches.

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So nearly alike are the arctic and common terns that it is hard, well-nigh impossible, in fact, to distinguish them when they are observed flying about in company. In size, manner of flight, language, and general appearance, they are identical. On a close examination the common tern is found to be slightly less slender in build, its under parts dull white instead of pale grey, its beak tipped with black and coral-red, instead of blood-red. It is doubtless owing to their similarity that the two species associate freely together at all times, and are often to be found breeding side by side. But while the arctic tern is most common in the north, from the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Hebrides, to the coast of Northumberland on the one side of the country, and of Lancashire on the other, the common tern is common only on the coasts south of these two points. The nest is a slight depression, sometimes with a little dry grass for lining, placed on the shingle of the beach; the three eggs are yellowish stone, grey, or olive colour, spotted and blotched with dark brown and grey.

Roseate Tern.

Sterna dougalli.

Bill black, orange-red at the base in the breeding season; legs and feet red; head and upper parts the same as in the arctic and common terns, except that the mantle is a paler pearl-grey; lower parts white suffused with rose. Length, fifteen inches and a quarter.

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This species differs from the two already described in its slimmer body and greater length of tail, and in its shorter and narrower wings. It also differs in the delicate rose-colour suffusing or tinging the white under-plumage; but this faint exquisite hue is seen only when the bird is in the hand. On the wing, unless very near, it appears white and pale grey like the common tern, and only an accustomed eye can distinguish it among the others by its slightly different shape. It may be more easily recognised by its short, constantly repeated note, which is more musical than that of the other species. Besides this short, excited note, it has the long, somewhat guttural, and gull-like cry common to all the terns. It breeds only on islands, and Howard Saunders, our best authority on the birds of this order, says that it is more ‘intolerant of interference’ than other terns: hence many of its old breeding-stations on the British coasts have been successively abandoned during the last half-century owing to egg-collecting, and the bird is now becoming so rare that its extinction as a British species at no distant date is feared by ornithologists. In the north of England, and at various places on the coasts of Scotland, a few pairs still breed in company with the common and arctic terns. The nest is a slight depression in the sand and gravel, and two or three eggs are laid, creamy white or buff-colour, blotched and clouded with bluish grey and rich brown. As soon as the young have been reared the breeding-ground is abandoned, and the migration southwards begins.

Little Tern.

Sterna minuta.

Bill orange-yellow tipped with black; legs and feet orange; crown and nape black; forehead and stripe over the eye white; mantle pearl-grey; tail and under parts white. Length, eight inches.

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PLATE XIV.

ROSEATE TERN (ADULT AND IMMATURE). ⅖ NAT. SIZE.]

The little, or lesser tern, is a third less than the common species in size, measuring only eight inches in length. The colour is nearly the same in both birds, except that the under parts in the little tern are pure white, and the bill orange--instead of coral-red. The voice differs somewhat, being thinner and shriller in tone; otherwise the language is the same. The flight is more wavering. This species is much less numerous than the arctic and common terns; in its habits it closely resembles them, breeding in communities, sometimes in company with the other kinds. When breeding alongside of the common tern its nests, as a rule, are placed a little apart and nearer to the water. The nest is a slight depression in the loose sand and gravel, sometimes with a few bents and fragments of dry seaweed for lining; the eggs are two or three in number, of a light stone-colour, spotted with grey and brown. In size and colour they closely resemble the eggs of the ringed plover. This tern, like the others, hovers screaming overhead when its breeding-ground is intruded on; but recovers from its anxiety only too quickly, for no sooner has the intruder got a little distance away than the bird drops down directly on to its nest. When the female is incubating the male brings food for her, and Mr. Trevor-Battye has described in his ‘Pictures in Prose’ the pretty way in which the birds play with each other before the fish is delivered. ‘Returned from his quest, the bird with a fish in his bill circles round and round, and lower and lower, over his mate, and presently drops down beside her. Then he begins a series of extraordinary evolutions. With head thrown back, wings drooping, and tail cocked straight up, he struts--no other word expresses it--he struts about in front of his mate.... He jumps at his mate, as if daring her to take the fish. Then he will fly round for a bit, only to settle again and repeat the play. I have seen on several occasions a female “chit,” before she had settled down on her eggs, get up, fly off, settle on the shingle off and on for a considerable time, followed persistently by her fish-bearing partner, but always avoiding him, as if coquetting or really annoyed. Sooner or later the fish is always relinquished, or, as I suspect, taken by the female bird.’

In Norfolk the little terns are called chits, or chit-perles.

Sandwich Tern.