FROM their tussocks upon the sward the pink flowers of the sea-thrift are rising. In one clump a pippit has its nest. The male bird rises high in the air, then falls suddenly, singing his little sweet song; he regains height by mad flutterings, sing-sing-singing all the time. In the matted turf the leaves of the wild thyme give a faint fragrance to the hands. Near by is the skull of a finch, whitened by the sun and the rains. Perhaps the falcons left it there, or one of the buzzards; or a herring gull chased and killed the bird, for gulls are prepared for any villainy. But it is still of use to something. A small spider lurks within its shadowed emptiness.
Reclining by the precipice edge one morning in May I was made curious by a sudden sweeping of gulls from the cliff-face (where they nest) to the sea. Two or three hundred, white in the sunshine, flapped and glided in a narrow circle by the rocks far below.
I looked carefully, but could see nothing. The spiral of tumbling whiteness and wild noise continued. Something in the green water was causing intense excitement. From all directions other sea-birds swept up; only the black shags squatted indifferently on their favourite rock. Then I saw a smooth, dark form swirling in the water, and heard a hoarse bark; the next moment it had dived. It was a seal. Presently the glistening animal rolled on the surface with a huge dogfish held in his jaws. The gulls screamed; a shrill clamouring broke out as the seal, having bitten the fish in two, threw one part into the air, caught it endways, and swallowed it. Round the Point he swam, while the birds fought over the remains. Presently he appeared with a writhing conger-eel, which with the greatest ease he bit up into little pieces.
An old fisherman, known as The Tiger, told me that the seal had been there for the last twenty years, and that so far as was known it had no mate. It showed no fear of a boat, and often came up alongside one, inspected it with filmy eyes, and quietly disappeared.
In spring the gulls throng to their colony upon the headland. When disturbed, they cry wildly, and circle in the air. Once as I lay in the sun listening to the sea-fret a sharp chattering overbore the wailing of the gulls, and a pair of peregrine falcons swept by.
In but a moment, it seemed, they were half a mile high, flying with incredible swiftness, the male chasing the larger female. From the direction of Lundy Island a pair of stock-doves came across the sea, no mean fliers. They saw the wheeling falcons, and fear doubled their wing-beats.
I watched the hawks in their mad love chase, and then the tiercel saw the doves, closed his pinions, and fell from a thousand feet to the terrified doves in a few seconds. I have seen scout machines diving in France, but the peregrines, one behind the other in echelon, seemed to stoop with greater speed than the fastest of them.
In fear the gulls fled to their crannies in the cliff-face. There was a flurry of feathers as the male hawk struck the leading pigeon; he dropped it, swerved, and struck the other, while his mate clawed his first kill. Upwards, with the dove suspended in her talons, she climbed. A heavy black raven flapped to the dove whose blood was staining the green sea as it lifted in the swell.
The peregrine screamed—check, check, check—and dropped on the heavier pirate, who, as the hawk came above him, rolled over and held up his javelin beak. The hawk slipped, regained height, stooped again, was met with the great beak, and then flashed away chattering towards the mainland, followed by his mate.
The next moment a crowd of gulls splashed and quarrelled over the dead pigeon, the raven a sombre fellow amid their whiteness; the rabbits crept from their burrows; and in the sunshine the tiny pippits jerked towards heaven in weak flight, then fell, singing and trilling. And life in the springtime went on.