I am an unabashed child of the 20th century. Neil Armstrong didn’t set foot on the moon until after my first birthday. My father taught me to use a slide rule for mathematical calculations. Computers were something my father worked with, but they were enormous and required paper punch-cards for data entry and storage. I was 9 years old when Star Wars came out. I remember a time before cell phones. I even remember card catalogs and a time when people went to libraries to read books.
My personal affinity for books (especially old books) is something I cannot truly explain. As a child, I didn’t like to read because it meant that I had to wear glasses. I was very self-conscious about glasses, but reading without them caused terrible headaches. As a result, I avoided reading for the most part and never liked doing my homework in school.
But somewhere along the way, I developed a true love of old books and a particular fondness for old field guides and nature books. My absolute favorite books are those that were published before 1940, when the paper was of wonderful quality and texture. I also like the language that was used in that time, and if you can go back to the 19th century, the whole experience just gets better and better. One of my oldest books is actually a three-volume set called, “A History of British Birds,” by William Yarrell. Published in 1856, it is full of gorgeous wood engravings.
Well, this week, to acknowledge my final column of the summer, I have the double pleasure of introducing you to a species heretofore unmentioned by me while also using some very old books to tell the story. I could have very easily used the internet to look up this information, but to me that would have taken all of the fun out of it. The adventure of seeing a new species can be extended when one goes into a library in an effort to learn about the bird that you have just seen. Hermione Granger would know exactly where I’m coming from.
The bird I speak of today is the great shearwater (Puffinus gravis). This bird is a “pelagic” species, which means that it rarely comes to land for any reason other than breeding. When not sitting on eggs, incubating hatchlings or feeding growing nestlings, the great shearwater is generally found out in the open ocean. My recent vacation to Cape Cod included a whale-watching cruise and it was during that voyage that I happened to see find myself face-to-face with my first shearwater.
Back in 1922, the species’ scientific name was Puffinus major, which I know because my personal library includes the book, “British Birds,” by W.H. Hudson. What I didn’t know until I opened that book was that Hudson was a beloved British author and a founding member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. So renowned was he that a commemorative edition was released the year after his death in 1923. The front endpaper reads, “W.H. Hudson — Born on the South American Pampas 1846-1922” and one of the many front pages indicates that 730 copies were authorized for sale in Britain with an additional 100 copies for sale in the United States. My copy was first owned by Hildegard G. Stoss in 1941.
The great shearwater is a bird truly unlike anything you or I might encounter on a normal day. The species breeds on the rocky cliffs of offshore islands in the Southern Hemisphere. One specific island, Gough Island, was mentioned as a breeding ground and for that, I finally did use the internet. It turns out that Gough Island is about halfway between Argentina and Botswana; smack dab in the middle of the southern Atlantic Ocean. The birds only visit the Northern Hemisphere during their “winter.” This really makes one think about the way the planet works.
Going back to my oldest book on British birds, the entry for the great shearwater (then known as the greater shearwater) includes the passage, “The first example of the Greater Shearwater obtained in this country … was shot by Mr. George Marwood, of Busby, in the middle of August, 1828, on a very stormy day, at the mouth of the Tees.” The book goes on to say that, “…little is known respecting this species as an inhabitant of our seas…” The lives of pelagic birds are so foreign to our own that they exist almost anonymously to we terrestrial species.
When I initially saw the shearwater, it was floating on the water several miles off the coast of Cape Cod. I thought it was a gull, but fortunately I aimed my camera at it and saw that the bird had a long, slender bill with a hook at its end. I instantly started taking photos and only after the ship had disturbed the bird did I witness its characteristic just-above-the-surface flight. Fortune favors the prepared, but I also got really lucky.
One last interesting thing about the shearwater is its genus name, Puffinus. I thought that this was somehow a suggestion that it was thought to have been related to the Atlantic puffin, but it turns out that the word, “puffin” is an English term for the cured carcass of a nestling shearwater, which was served as a culinary delicacy in 18th-century England. The word was eventually shifted to the puffins, but by then the genus name had already been assigned to the shearwaters. Truly strange stuff.
Well folks, that’s the end of my summer. I have a whole catalog of photos from Cape Cod that have yet to be shared with you and after reading this column, I start to wonder if I should write a column on antique bird books. Next month will bring us the first day of autumn and the familiar changing of the seasons will commence. I look forward to sharing many more adventures with you.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 21 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and Massachusetts State Parks, and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.