At first they appeared quite indifferent to
my presence, although in some instances near enough for their
yellow irides to be visible. While unalarmed they were very
silent, standing in that clear sunshine that gave their
whiteness something of a crystalline appearance; or flying to
and fro along the face of the cliff, purely for the delight of
bathing in the warm lucent air. Gradually a change came over
them. One by one those that were on the wing dropped on to
some projection, until they had all settled down, and, letting
my eyes range up and down over the huge wall of rock, it was
plain to see that all the birds were watching me. They had
made the discovery that I was a stranger. In my rough old
travel-stained clothes and tweed hat I might have passed for a
Branscombe villager, but I did no hoeing and digging in one of
the cultivated patches; and when I deliberately sat down on a
rock to watch them, they noticed it and became suspicious; and
as time went on and I still remained immovable, with my eyes
fixed on them, the suspicion and anxiety increased and turned
to fear; and those that were sitting on their nests got up and
came close to the edge of the rock, to gaze with the others
and join in the loud chorus of alarm. It was a wonderful
sound. Not like the tempest of noise that may be heard at the
breeding-season at Lundy Island, and at many other stations
where birds of several species mix their various voices--the
yammeris and the yowlis, and skrykking, screeking, skrymming
scowlis, and meickle moyes and shoutes, of old Dunbar's
wonderful onomatopoetic lines.
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