Audubon at Bird Rock
An interesting account, showing the numbers in which birds often live together, is the following, written by Audubon. The great ornithologist was, at the time of writing, visiting Bird Rock, a little granite island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, so named from its only inhabitants, birds, mostly of a species called Gannet.
“About ten, a speck rose on the horizon, which I was told was the Rock. We sailed well, the breeze increased fast, and we neared the object apace. At eleven, I could distinguish its top plainly from the deck, and thought it covered with snow to the depth of several feet. This appearance existed on every portion of the flat, projecting shelves. Godwin (the guide) said, with the coolness of a man who had visited this rock for successive seasons, that what we saw was not snow, but Gannets. I rubbed my eyes, took my spy-glass, and in an instant the strangest picture stood before me. They were birds we saw—a mass of birds of such size as I never before cast my eyes on. The whole of my party stood astounded and amazed, and all came to the conclusion that such a sight was of itself sufficient to invite anyone to come across the gulf to view it at this season. The nearer we approached, the greater our surprise at the enormous number of these birds, all calmly seated on their eggs or newly-hatched brood, their heads all turned to the windward and toward us. The air above for a hundred yards, and for the same distance around the Rock, was filled with Gannets on the wing, which, from our position, made it appear as if a heavy fall of snow was directly above us. The whole surface (of the island) is perfectly covered with nests, placed about two feet apart, in such regular order that you may look through the lines as you would look through those of a planted patch of sweet potatoes or cabbages. When one reaches the top, the birds, alarmed, rise with a noise like thunder, and fly off in such a hurried, fearful confusion as to throw each other down, often falling on each other until there is a bank of them many feet high.”
This was in 1833. If Audubon could visit the island now, how he would find the “snows” melted. There is to-day not a single Gannet nesting on the top of the rock. On the ledges and in the crannies about its sides, the birds still dwell in great numbers, even in thousands, but not in the countless myriads of the past.