Bygone birding: slaughter of Common Scoters was once Christmas shooting ritual in southern France

                                           

Portrait of Common Scoters in Arctic waters in Gould's Birds of Europe

News that the RSPB is seeking to appoint a Common Scoter Manager has prompted a reminder of what John Gould wrote about this marine duck species in the mid-19th Century:

It will not be necessary for my readers to be told that our earth is encircled by zones termed the frigid, the temperate and the torrid.

 Every schoolboy knows the principal features of the poles, but perhaps there are persons who are not aware that, although the conditions of the Arctic and Antarctic circles are much alike, the birdlife of these opposite ends of the globe is very dissimilar.

Guillemots, Puffins, divers and ducks of numerous species, inhabit the northern, while penguins, albatrosses and petrels, but no ducks, or scarcely any, inhabit the ice-bound lands of the south. 

The bird whose history I am about to give pertains to the north, and belongs to one of the peculiar types of ducks above alluded to - commonly termed scoters, are strictly denizens of the icy regions.

 They are strikingly different in colour, and somewhat in structure, from every other form in the great family of ducks. 

That nature’s general laws are sometimes infringed is evident from the peculiar coloration of the birds of this genus which does not, as is generally the case, assimilate in any way with the objects surrounding them.

What can form a greater contrast than their jetty-black colour with either the masses of snow and floating ice-mountains of the part of the ocean they inhabit or, the borders of the inland rivers and lakes, or the tussocky parts of the marshes upon which they breed? 

The black colouring of the scoters is most distinctive and, in the present species, the Common Scoter,  there is no indication whatever of a white mark on any part of its plumage.

When the rigours of winter induce the Common Scoter to leave the north and seek the more temperate latitudes and seas surrounding the British Islands and those which wash the shores of Holland, France, and Spain, it may be seen in flocks of many hundreds.

In the winter season, we can scarcely take a trip from Dover to Calais or from Folkestone to Boulogne without the vessel steaming through little knots of the Scoter, while, from the deck, strings of 40 or more may frequently he seen passing to and fro between one part of their feeding-grounds and another.

When a solitary individual leaves the seas for our inland waters or ascends the Thames and other rivers far above the tideway, we may be sure that it is incited to do so by some unwonted cause, perhaps from sickness or an internal injury.

This remark, however, does not apply to the small companies which are said, now and then, to visit the great lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

Saline lakes are more in unison with their habits and mode of life than fresh waters, for molluscs, shrimps and other crustaceans are as plentiful on their sandy bottoms as on the bed of the sea. 

Being supposed to partake of the nature of fish, Common Scoters are eaten in France and Spain during Lent and on fast-days. 

A French account of the mode in which many of these birds are obtained upon the various salt lakes in the vicinity of Martigues, at the mouth of the Rhone, reveals that these numerous salt lakes are frequented in winter by large flocks of aquatic birds. 

With the first appearance of frost, the Common Scoters and other ducks arrive in numerous small flocks, and a destructive sort of battle takes place in which all who can are induced to participate with great eagerness. 

About Christmas, when the scoters have made their appearance, printed bills are posted at Marseilles, Aix-en-Provence and all the principal towns in the vicinity, stating the intended order of attack upon the birds, and the day and hour at which it is to take place.

The mayors of two or three of the principal places make the necessary arrangements. 

On the eve of the day fixed upon, all the shooters are divided into parties, and each has a boat, a pilot and a commander appointed. 

The assemblage is large, filling the inns and the lodgings to be had at private houses. 

In the morning, at the sound of a drum, the embarkation takes place on the lake named for the first attempt.

The boats, filled with sportsmen, form an extended circle round the flocks of birds at one part of the lake.

The boats then draw in, diminishing the circle by degrees, until the crews are within gunshot of the intended victims. 

At a well-known and preconcerted signal, a partial discharge takes place at the unfortunate birds while swimming on the surface of the water. 

Many are killed on the spot; those which escape the first fire attempt to save themselves by flight, when a second discharge assails them in the air.

Many more fall, and with broken wings and loud cries, are picked by the shooters, who divide the spoil, not without many altercations, and return to land. 

After a short respite, the birds having again collected together on that or some other neighbouring lake, a second advance takes place in the same manner, and the day is passed in making a succession of attacks, each followed by a retreat for a time to allow the birds to reassemble. 

A chasse, as it is termed, of a somewhat similar character, is performed near Bastia, the capital of Corsica.

However, in this locality, the Common Scoter is always accompanied by numbers of the Red-throated Diver which appear to act the part of sentinels outside the flock of ducks.

So quick-sighted are these sentinels, and so instantaneously do they dive, and so rapidly do they swim under water, that hundreds of scoters are killed to one couple of divers.

Enough has been said to show that this bird is strictly a winter visitant with us.

However, it does remain within the precincts of the British Islands until late in the spring, and even, in some instances, until summer has fairly set in.

Flocks have been seen off Dungeness as late as the middle of June, and a writer in The Zoologist states that Lake Windermere is visited every year, about the first week in July, some14 having been observed off Wray Castle at that period in 1848. 

The Common Scoter must, therefore, commence the task of nesting immediately after its return home. 

Up to the present time we have no record of its having bred in the British Islands. 

Mr. Dann states that it breeds in Scandinavia from 800 to 2000 feet below the snow-line, and Mr. Procter found it breeding in Iceland, which is probably its most western limit, for Professor Reinhardt does not include it among the birds of Greenland. 

Eastwardly, it is said to visit the Caspian Sea. 

In the far north, the late Mr. John Wolley found it breeding   in Lapland, and Mr. Alfred Newton informs me that  it is plentiful enough in the interior of that country where it is known as the seabird par excellence, and its musical notes add to the pleasure with which a naturalist explores the countless lakes of that desolate region.

The nest is generally placed in some sheltered spot on the ground, and the eggs, which are six or seven in number, are of a pale buff slightly tinged with green, somewhat more than two inches in length by about one inch and three-quarters in breadth.

The diving powers of the Common Scoter are as perfect as those of any other species which resorts to that mode of procuring its food from the bottom of the turbulent sea.

Its whole structure, its flattened tarsi, large feet and dense plumage are all admirably fitted for the purpose. 

Its flight is rapid, straight, and of sufficient duration to convey the bird from the sea to the inland lakes or from one part of its feeding-ground to another.

Generally, however, these passages from place to place are performed near the surface of the water, but it is said to mount higher in the air when necessity requires it so to do.