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This is only obliquely triggered, by Richard Stern's mention of fulmar
below. On the plane flying back from UK recently I'd been reading the
memoir of Rev. Donald John Gillies 'The Truth about St. Kilda. An
islander's memoir' [ISBN: 978 1 9065666 07 4; www.birlin.co.uk].
There are other books on St Kilda but apparently this is the only
account of the privations on the outermost, very isolated western isle
off Scotland to have been written by someone who was actually raised
there (the main island is called Hirta or Hirte). On pages 7-10 he
gives an account of the birds of St. Kilda upon which the inhabitants
depended for food, which might be of interest to some birders and
others on this list if it is not already known here. Gillies' account
includes:
Families got through the winter on a diet of 'salt mutton, salt fish
and salt fulmar'. His family had two casks (barrels?) of salted young
Fulmar laid down each year in order to make it through the winter. He
doesn't say, but these presumably were procured from nests on the
cliffs by 'craggsmen' on ropes.
The first birds to migrate in after the winter, in early April, were
Shearwaters (species not IDd). These were caught at night with the
aid of a trained dog (perhaps 6 birds in a night) and were considered
delicious after a long winter of fulmar.
The second birds to arrive were Puffins around May 1, seen earlier in
rafts of millions on the sea nearby. He mentions also seeing them
elsewhere after he left St Kilda, including near Bird Isle off Sydney,
Cape Breton. The sheath of the bill is discarded after the breeding
season and was prized by 'Indians for making necklaces'. As many as
150 would be killed and shared out among families who couldn't collect
them for themselves. Delicious barbecued, he says.
They also harvested Guillemots by lying inert on ledges on sea stacks
at night disguised in rock-matching clothing, picking the birds off as
they flew in just before dawn. All the collecting sounds dangerous.
He alone caught 42 in one expedition to a nearby island, others more.
There was a large colony of gannets on Stac Lee, and apart from the
danger of trying to land on this sea stack, these were trickier to
surprise because there was always a lookout bird ('kingbird') on duty
that could give the alarm. If this bird could be surprised and
killed, the hunt would be successful. Earlier, gannets were said to
have been the main food item on St Kilda.
There was also egg collection from the cliffs by craggsmen absailing
on ropes, though he doesn't give much detail apart from a couple of
human deaths.
Gillies left St Kilda in the 1920s for the mainland and eventually
emigrated to Nova Scotia as an ordained minister, and travelled widely
after that, returning to St K in the 1960s and in 1979. As young
people left the island after WW1 the remaining islanders could no
longer do all the heavy work required to survive (e.g. peat cutting,
bird collecting) and petitioned the British government to relocate
them to the mainland. This evacuation took place in 1930, leaving St
Kilda uninhabited since. The book was compiled posthumously from 6
rambling notebooks written by a man raised in an oral, non-literary
tradition. I wouldn't recommend it as a particularly gripping read,
but it contains some interesting social information about the
traditions of the St Kildians.
Does anyone know if anything is known about this Rev Gillies in Nova
Scotia, after his immigration here?
Steve, Halifax
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quoting Stern <sternrichard@gmail.com>:
> Hi,
> Brier was quieter today - still many birds and a different mix from
> yesterday , but (so far) no real rarities. Fulmar and Leach's
> storm-petrel were interesting on this afternoon' pelagic.
> Bonaparte's gulls were at N. Point and Pond Cove.
>
> Richard Stern
> sternrichard@gmail.com
> Sent from my iPhone
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