Summer is No Holiday for Seabirds

Every year, 24 species of seabird flap, swoop and soar their way to Scotland's islands, cliffs and beaches. Some of them will have migrated thousands of miles from warmer climates, like the coast of Africa, where they go to avoid the cold and stormy Scottish winters. Others, like puffins, spend winter way out in the North Sea and might not have touched land since last summer! Yet no matter where they came from, these spectacular seabirds are now in Scotland with one mission: to breed, feed and raise their young.

© Mark Roden

Most seabirds are solitary in winter but — during summer — thousands will cram themselves onto clifffaces, wedge themselves into wave-worn crevices and hunker down in grassy nooks to nest. It can be difficult to find a space, but each species has its own special tactic so that every available space can be utilised. Razorbills, guillemots and kittiwakes nest on sheer cliffs, sometimes on rocky shelves barely any wider than their own bodies. Shags and cormorants favour the wider, sea-splashed lower ledges. Puffins scoop out burrows in the crumbly soil of flatter slopes, where female eider ducks will also flatten themselves into shallow dips in sheltered corners. These nesting habits can also offer protection. Steep cliffs are unclimbable for many predators, and burrows provide a secure hidey-hole for defenceless pufflings (baby puffins) that larger predators like gulls can’t squeeze into.

© James Glossop

Other species rely on additional tactics to protect their precious young. Eider ducks rely on camouflage to trick predators. The females are mottled brown and sit on their eggs until they hatch, blending in perfectly with the rocks, bare soil and coarse vegetation. In fact, they blend in so well and stay so still that you might have walked within a footstep of one without knowing it!

© Jamie McDermaid

Sharply pointed Arctic terns will swoop and stab at trespassers. Meanwhile, fulmar adults and chicks will spit a sticky, smelly oil over any intruder who gets too close. It's usually a successful tactic, as nobody wants a face-full of bird vomit!

© Greg Macvean

By June, Scotland’s coasts and islands will be buzzing with the boisterous begging of hungry chicks. With only a month or two until they fledge and begin fending for themselves, seabird chicks must grow large and strong quickly. To succeed, they rely on their parents bringing them a steady stream of food—and lots of it! Pufflings might gobble as many as 100 fish every day. Gannet chicks (gugas) stay in the nest for longer—about 13 weeks— guzzling fish until they’re eight times their initial size and even bigger than their parents! In fact, they’ve put on so much weight that they can’t fully fly for a week or two after gliding from the nest.

© Susan Davies

Razorbills and guillemots are also unable to fly upon fledging—but neither can they glide very well! Instead, they flutter their wings as best they can after leaping (and plummeting) from the dizzyingly high ledges where they were born. For the next several weeks, their devoted fathers continue to care for them at sea until they’re ready to become independent.

For most seabirds, however, fledging marks the end of a chick’s familial bond with its parents. It might be many years before it returns to breed as an adult, sometimes even at the same colony or nest site where it was born. For their parents, it means the end of another busy summer by the coast. There’s no such thing as a seabird summer holiday!

• Header Image (c) Mark Roden
• Listing Image (c) Jamie McDermaid