Page:Bird Life Throughout the Year (Salter, 1913).djvu/212

146 rocky ledges guillemots and razorbills swarm like bees, outlying hummocks capped with peat in which are the burrows of shearwater and petrel and the far western, sea-girt haunts of gannet and fulmar. All these varied scenes of bird-life, often in wild and picturesque setting, may be found around our shores.

We may take our stand upon the bold chalk cliffs of Flamborough, which front the North Sea like a great white wall and overlook its restless waves from such a height that they are dwarfed to a tracery of finest ripples. Or we may stand where the grim overhanging front of Spanish Head, with its memories of the ruined Armada, looks across the narrow sound to the Calf of Man. Or shall we choose some remote spot upon the coast of Western Wales where rent and twisted strata, stacks and natural arch combine to form rock scenery of wild and varied type? As each swell passes, the water gurgles and spurts from a blowhole, and its hoarse, hollow murmur is heard as it ebbs and flows into dismal caverns haunted by otter and seal. Not less suited to our purpose are parts of the Irish coast, where the black and jagged cliffs are brilliant with patches of the white campion, sulphur kidney-vetch or rose sea-pink.

To enjoy a general survey of such a sea-bird colony we must take a boat and cruise along the foot of the cliffs. Earth, air and water teem with birds. Heavy