3 young Wren on Mykines, July 2003.
As you least expect it, you will experience something new, different and totally unexpected on Mykines.
On the way home from Holmen, you must cross a fence with a gate. And with the sunlight coming right from behind, I discovered, when I was maybe 3 meters from the gate, a wren, which sat free on one of the stones in the wall near the door. Immediately I stopped and looked at the half slumbering wren in my binoculars. It was a young one, since the corners of the beak were bright. I took the camera up and moved me with very slow movement toward the little bird. It woke up, but I was not registered as an enemy or something it would be afraid of, as it remained sitting. I came so close with the camera, that I had to adjust to macro, the option one must use, when photographing flowers and butterflies, to focus on the little bird. It began moving around, slipped in among the rocks, caught crane flies and other insects. I was standing almost motionless and all movements were performed very slowly. It turned out, that the little cousin was not alone. There were two other young wrens around the fence and gate. I was leaning towards a wooden fence and suddenly one of the wrens jumped along the fence, crossed just under my arm, which was supported by the fence, at a distance from my body of 10 to 15 centimeters. They behaved completely as if I was absent! One of them flew to the ground near my right foot and I thought at a time, that it actually would sit down on my boots, but so far it didn't came. I remained standing, the wrens jumped around, in between the stones, sometimes I could not see a single one of them, a little later being able to see one, two or all three at once. Sometimes they turned upside down when they with their little sharp claws hooked themselves onto the stone or wooden posts or fencing wire. Sometimes they sat long silent, with dull eyes, other times they just cleared some feathers, which had come out of order. They got plenty of catch, various insects, the largest crane flies they had a little trouble killing, because they of course always tried to escape. But all the many catches all ended up with, that the wren succeeded and consumed the prey. I was standing in maybe one hour and fifteen minutes and looked at the small birds, because I was so lucky, that no other people passed and disturbed the quiet confidence, that I had with the little cousins, who did not register me as something dangerous or threatening. Perhaps they were not experienced enough for the dangers of the world. Or maybe it was just the way I came into their universe which, at this stage of their lives, consisted of a stone wall, a fence, some soil and a gate with an extent of a few meters. Maybe that this meant, that I just was regarded as a harmless object on an equal footing with the other permanent physical objects in their surroundings.
About the jump of a young guillemot into the big world 11th of August 2003 on Mykines.
This has happened millions of times before around the world. It has failed for other millions. But of course, a smaller number. But a breathtaking experience it is was anyway.
In 1977 I for the first time saw a young guillemot jump into the big world. I watched the child and the parent bird in maybe 3 quarters of an hour, where there was an ongoing running back and forth on the shelf, a lot of calling and peep until the youngster jumped, slipped on a big rock and hit the water with its belly up, but quickly got himself orientated, came on an even keel and was accompanied to the high seas by the parent bird, which had jumped immediately after the young one.
But this evening there was quite a different determination of the little young. The bird and the parent had been standing a little back on the shelf for more than half an hour from when I started my observations. But then the parent bird began to move sideways toward the left along the inside edge of the shelf and the youngster followed. There were a few breaks where youngster hesitated a little, stretched and flapped its wings. The parent bird moved to where the shelf is very narrow and ending in a pointed triangle. The parent bird did not even come all the way to the tip, before the child took the lead, went right up and jumped! Although there was upwards wind along the shelf and the little young flapped vigorously with its wings, the momentum was not enough, so it landed several feet from the edge of the water between some big stones. For a long time, perhaps three to four minutes, neither saw nor heard I anything to the little bird, apart from the parent birds strenuous calling from the sea, which in a fast dive right after the leap of the young, now floated just outside the stones. But then the youngs fine three pitch calling could be heard through the rush of the breaking waves and the calls of the parent bird. But still it could not be seen. But then it emerged from between the boulders. And in a combination of climbing, jumping and vigorous wing flapping and frequent call and response between parent bird and the young, it was moving in as straight a line as possible towards the parent bird, which lay a few meters from the edge of the water, which constantly moving forward and back in step with the waves. It fell down large rocks and down into the spaces between the boulders and disappeared completely from sight for long periods. Reappeared and tried an alternative route. Eventually it was so close to the water that the next wave struck it farther up between the stones it had just passed and then pulled it out. The little young paddled up using both wings and legs, but the direction was unerring forward in the direction from where the calls of the parent came. The parent bird swam towards the little one and they were united again. The parent bird turned around and continued outwards with a distance of only a few centimeters to perhaps half a meter to the little bird, depending on how the waves changed their momentum. The parent bird rose into the water and shook himself, lowered his beak in the water and shook it. And they disappeared out of sight in calmer water further out.
A moving experience of caring for its offspring and the youngs resolute leap into a large and uncertain world. A world that just before had been only a small shelf with a precipice on one side and a vertical rock face to another for the small bird.
About gannets and their fisheries by Mykines in autumn 2003.
The entire first half of August 2003 gave rise to frequent observation of fishing gannets, as they almost all day and all the week could be seen fishing around the stacks, along the south coast of Holmen, off the bridge and Kvalagjogv, next to the village and Lendingergjogv, off Kumlagrunna and further east. They were not always in the large numbers, but one was almost always able seen four, maybe five or six individuals with the naked eye and with binoculars a lot more.
It's incredible skills the gannets demonstrate when fishing. From up to 30 meters, they start their dive against the surface of the sea. The height could repeatedly be determined by line of sight from the known hight of observation to known heights of Holmen, the stacks and to the horizon. Many times they were seen close to the shoreline, just a few meters out and even shorter from large stones, especially around the stacks.
Usually one can see on the gannets, that they are fishing. They fly almost always against the direction of the wind to reduce their speed relative to the sea. They fly rather slowly and often with slightly lowered head, at times to bend it completely against the water, unlike their general transportation flight, where the head is kept straight ahead. Once they have flown so searching toward the wind for 100 to 200 meters, they turn around on and fly with the wind in a sweeping large circle, usually with a slight decrease in hight and increase in speed, to turn against the wind in a quite steep climb and again use their wings to gain their search flight hight.
When they had got an eye on the prey, one see their amazing air acrobatics. In an instant, sometimes without any warning, they can turn snap on, their backs down, while making their wings big and wide and in almost the same moment and movement, change direction to a more or less vertical dive against the sea. With wings outstretched they make different steer maneuvers and adjustments of the dive towards the sea, the speed increases and the wings are made smaller, bent at the elbow and wrist and finally stretched completely backwards, so the gannet finally, as a spindle shaped arrow and in high speed breaks the surface of the water in a spray, that goes much higher upwards than towards the sides.
The gannet is below the surface of sea in a varying amount of time, probably depending on how deep it has been and come up to surface as a stopper. You can not see, whether they have caught anything, no fish to be maneuvered into place, as seen for example when the shag have caught something. The catch must be swallowed immediately and the beak of the gannet also has the interesting property, that it has a hinge at the root, so that it can open their beaks without open their mouth. After a varying time delay, the gannet starts against the wind and after some high strokes with their wings and some takeoffs on the water with their feet, the are on their wings again, often ending the session by shaking the feathers when completely free of the water. With strong deep strokes, they again get hight to begin a new search for fish.
One evening in mid-August the weather was incredibly fine. Out at the stacks, there was hardly any wind, while the tide paused and almost no waves were. It was incredibly quiet, compared to the normal at this place, as there almost always are the white noise from the surf, the sea and the tidal stream Strongurin, the flow of water extending to the south southwest from the stacks and the Stone. The waves of Strongurin resembles the waves from the bow of a ship, going westward at a speed of up to 9 knots and might have been one of the main reasons, that, in legends, Mykines was called a floating island. For is it the sea which flows past Mykines or Mykines who plows through the ocean? But here, this rare evening, I heard a sudden strange sound, as the sound from a cod smut. It was the sound of fishing gannets, which broke the surface in high speed. Just after again a plump, then two straight after each other, then a pause, so again followed by two in rap. Yes, it was gannets who were fishing from a great heights and the sound really gave the impression of the speed by which the gannets hit the sea. As also seen by the fine array of air bubbles, indicating the track of the dive and which gives the water this wonderful bright green color.
How often a dive gives a prey is not easy to assess by simple observation, but many times one can see how an intended dive is interrupted at different altitudes and passes into a sweeping dive and subsequent rise to the search flight level. The gannet has a split second, to decide to continue the dive or terminate the dive, as not worthwhile. Perhaps because the prey has came out of sight or perhaps because the height as a starting point for the dive, was not enough to get down to the depth of the prey.
When one considers how dark, it sometimes can be, before the gannets stop fishing in the evening and how uneven the sea surface can be, because of wind waves, strong currents and swell and the hight from where they are able to see their prey, they must be equipped with an incredibly sharp and good vision.
If you also think of all the processes which must be in place for a dive to succeed, it is an impressive set of features, the gannet must be the holder of. The sight must be very sharp, with great resolution and probably with the property to see sharply both above and below sea level. The eyes of the gannet are located as far out on the head as possible and when the head is seen from below, you will see, that the eyes can actually be seen outside the otherwise very broad base of the bill. One may therefore assume, that the gannets vision actually includes the ocean beneath it, while it not even directly looking down toward the water. What it surely does when it tries to fish, but thats probably to get the sea and prey into the central vision. But some peripheral vision is probably a fact purely from an anatomical view of the bird. The gannets visual function should be able to interpret the image, which comes through the retina of the eye into the visual cortex. There fish and other food must be sorted from everything else, when the bird looks down into the sea. The food must be identified, its swimming direction, depth and speed determined and the decision to dive must be taken in a split second and cause extremely complicated motor control signals to the wings and feathers. Going down the gannet probably always have the object in the central vision and there must always be corrections for water refraction, the movements of the sea surface, that constantly appear to move, wind influence on the direction of the dive must be regulated from assessment of how deep the object swim and coming through the surface of the water, the vision of the gannet must suddenly be diverted to see through the water by one or another change of the eyeball or at least the lens to regain focus, and the steering is now probably by movements of the whole body and the position of the head in relation to it, like wings and feet helps to slow down, when the prey is caught with their beaks and then they have to seek upwards towards the surface again.
Sometimes you see the gannet making a different kind of dive. That is from a low altitude and quite flat and only shallow. These dives are completed at the sea surface with shaking of the body, neck, head and wings, bristling with feathers and a kind of bath and feather purification.
The summer of 2003 gave so many opportunities to see the gannets fishing from Mykines and the memory was filled with so many beautiful internal images.
The existence of so many refined properties which must be located in the brain of the gannet and which hardly can be referred to as just instincts but the expression of a process of learning in complex neural networks.
It is safe to assume, that if all what happens in the brain of the gannet during foraging and diving, had to be formulated into a model, that model would be an extremely complex issue and if this model were then implemented in a digital model, as now is modern with all sorts of phenomena, it would certainly demand an enormous processing power for the model not to die from hunger.
Perhaps the fact, that the young gannets, when they leave the nesting sites, are weighing more than a normal adult gannet and are extremely well padded in fat, a kind of life insurance for the young. It must have something that balances on in the learning phase, until it gets experienced in diving and master the difficult art and incredibly complex skill to dive with such a degree of success, that it can survive and get back in the sexually mature state and then be as good a fisherman, that has the surplus to also raise a young, which can bring the genus further. There must undoubtedly be many blanks, before the neural network in its brain has been adjusted and refined by the experiences of many dives under very different circumstances.
The gannets catching abilities, provided of sufficient food, seems to be so good, that a pair can raise two youngs, which otherwise never has been seen in nature. Scientists have placed two eggs in a gannet nest and could see, that the pair apparently had no difficulties in giving both youngs a good start in life with normal weight for both youngs. There was however no one who asked the gannets how the breeding season was, in which they were exposed to this experiment. Whether it had been easy or if they were completely exhausted and just had not been able to withstand the incessant pup begging for food. And therefore felt compelled to fishing, although they were tired.
About some black guillemots youngs in Hellis Gjogv in year 2008.
Mykines Holm is the goal for most of the people who are visiting Mykines. And great is the Holm indeed, partly because the gannets nest there. However, ornithological experiences can also be achieved elsewhere on Mykines. And one of these places are Hellis Gjogv.
Hellis Gjov is a small cove, which lies just east of the village and toward east and north is limited by steep, nearly vertical cliff walls that extend up to around 125 meters altitude. These walls are in themselves impressive, with an incredibly varied relief and all sorts of colors, including a couple of bands of red tuff, which winds between the layers of lava, which for about 65 million years ago, formed the Faroe Islands. To the south Hellis Gjogv opens towards the sea and towards west the high walls level out into the grassy scree and passes into the portion of the infield, called Bø. On the vertical sides of the creek, many birds breed, mostly kittiwakes, but also guillemots, fulmars and razorbills. The scree, which forms the transition to Bø, spawn many puffins and also black guillemots between large boulders. There is a fantastic acoustics in Hellis Gjogv, with an incredible impression of space, which almost acts as an amplifier of the birds' voices, because of the hard rock. On the water you can often see many puffins in peaceful existence and circulating between each other. They often pass their the time by washing themselves and arrange their feathers. In addition you can see e g shags and now and then even a seal head above the water surface. The water in Hellis Gjogv is often clear as crystal and very deep and westwards is a long piece of rock that goes straight down into the water and where there have been thoughts of making a new landing place, since even large ships could berth here, with the great depth and that, by nature, an almost completed berth. But those plans are abandoned, partly because the place is so open to the sea and therefore are highly exposed to the surf. At some places the bedrock even projects out over the water at a height of 1.5 meters to 4 meters, as tides at Mykines varies with up to 2.5 meter at spring tide, or hard torrent as it is called on the Faroe Islands. The place is often well sheltered from the winds and there can be quite nice and warm when the sun bake all day.
If one sit down, just hiding among the rocks, right at the vertical part of the coast, you could often see how the peace and quiet was disrupted when some people came over and the peace returned, when they left. If a great skua or a raven came by, it could be heard at once on the entire mood of Hellis Gjogv. The kittiwakes perpetually chatter increased and the birds on the water pulled farther out to sea. But when there was calm, it was often as if the puffins were downright curious and slowly and gently spread out over the water surface again and then approached the place, where you sat and inquisitively and with head slightly awry, looked up at one. Once I heard a cautious and rather deep voice, almost babbling and it turned out to come from an eider, which came floating along the shore with her three youngs. They were quite close to the rock, but after they discovered the observer, they pulled a little further out on the water, but calmly and without panic.
During the first week of August year 2008, one could observe up to 5 black guillemots youngs on the water in Hellis Gjogv. They are distinguished by their black and white mottled plumage and black legs, quite different from the adult's dark, almost greenish brown plumage and bright red legs. As a rule, they were scattered all over the water when you came over there, and often pulled away from the shore. Often they could be seen diving and was down for up to 45 seconds. If I had being sitting there for a long time, it was as one's presence was ignored by the birds and they came quite close to the rock wall. Sometimes one could not see any black guillemot youngs when I came over, but after sitting there for a little while, they came quietly floating along the the rock. One of the youngs was very special. It was often on the water and slept all the way along the vertical part of the rock and thus came drifting into the torrent, which came from a slight protrusion of the rock wall. Deep in sleep such a bird not often is, as you could see them open their eyes just to orientate themselves, although the beak remained under their wing. Several times it came into conflict with the seaweed that grew on the rock wall and came in open air, when it was low tide. It was several times as if it was caught in a bit of seaweed, but shook himself loose and swam a little away. What was the most wonderful was that you could lie just over the bird on the rock that towered over the water, where it passed just as perhaps 1.5 meters below. Sometimes one had the impression, that they not at all were aware of ones existence, but at other times there was eye contact, which strangely enough did not meant, that they swam farther out, but simply continued their quiet paddle with their small black flippers. On the most beautiful days, when there were almost no wind and very clear water, one could see the most beautiful scenery, when the dark bird was gliding over the surface of the bright, greenish turquoise colored water, the color so well caught in any of S. J-Mikines paintings of the surf at Kumla, which is the continuation of the coast of Hellis Gjogv westward toward Lendingargjogv.
The small black guillemots youngs, or "piser" as the youngs are called in Faroese, were therefore a part of the intense experiences of nature, that visitors in Hellis Gjogv in 2008 could get.
See the pictures by clicking here, pictures of black guillemot youngs