The Outermost House by Henry Beston

Author:Henry Beston [Henry Beston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911590156
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2019-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

—II—

About the middle of December, I began to see that an amusing game of cross purposes was being played by the sea birds and the land birds of the region west of the dunes. Food becoming scarce upon the uplands, crows, bobwhites, and starlings began to take an interest in the sea and the salt meadows, while gulls took to exploring the moors and to sitting in the top branches of inland pines. One wise old gull once discovered that there was good fare to be had in Mr. Joe Cobb’s chicken yard just off the western rim of the great marsh, and every morning this sagacious creature would separate himself from the thousands milling about over the cold tides and flutter down among the hens. There he would forage about, picking up grain like a barnyard fowl till he had dulled the edge of his hunger. I doubt if gulls ever do more. After visiting the chicken yard regularly for several winters, the bird disappeared one spring and was never seen again. He had probably lived out the span of his days.

I pause here to wonder at how little we know of the life span of wild animals. Only cases of exceptionally long life or short life seem to attract the attention of man. I can open any good bird book and find a most careful, a most detailed study of the physical selves and habits of birds, but of their probable length of life, never a word. Such material would be exceedingly difficult to secure, and perhaps the suggestion is folly, but there are times when one wishes that this neglected side of animal existence might have more attention.

During the summer, I never saw starlings on the marsh, but now that winter is here they leave the uplands by the coast guard station, and venture out along the dunes. These flights of exploration are very rare. I have seen the birds flying over the salt meadows, I have seen them light on the ridgepole of a gunning camp, but I have never once encountered them on the outer beach. With crows, it is a different story. The birds will investigate anything promising, and during the summer I found crows on the beach on four or five different occasions, these visits being made, for the most part, early in the morning.

Chancing to look toward the marsh one warm October afternoon, I witnessed a battle between two gulls and a young crow for the possession of some marine titbit the crow had picked up on the flats; it was a picturesque contest, for the great silvery wings of the gulls beat down and enclosed the crow till he resembled a junior demon in some old lithograph of the war in heaven. Eventually one of the gulls seized on the coveted morsel, flew off a bit, and gulped it down, leaving the crow and the other gull to “consider” like the cow in the old song. Winter and necessity now make the crow something of a beach comber.

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