by Frank Stanley Graves and Pilcher George Ralfe

“ Most of the lakes of the Walls district had a few pairs, the characteristic sites for the nests being little knobs of rock or boulders rising a foot or two above the water-level, with a hollow on the top just large enough to accommodate a single nest. Few of these by the end of May contained their full complement of eggs. In a little shallow pond on the Chingies, Scalloway, were nests similarly placed. The cry of the Common Gull, a kind of harsh croak, is very characteristic. ”

“ There are great colonies, as is well known, on Foula, and in Burra Firth, Unst. On the former island we saw innumerable Kittiwakes flying from a bit of wet ground inland to the cliffs, each with a morsel of moss in its beak.
Great Skua (Stercorarius catarrhactes) .—We saw the colonies both on Foula, and, by permission of Mr. Edmondston, on Hermanness. At the former laying had just commenced. On 25th May we saw a number of empty nests, others with one egg, and about twelve with their full number of two eggs. The nest was usually a scratched hollow about a foot across. ”

“ There is a colony on a rocky knoll in the middle of a loch in another neighbourhood. This little island has steeper sides than is usual, and a luxuriant growth of Luzula. On 21st May there were about twelve nests, empty, or with one, two, or three eggs. The eggs in each nest agreed in colour.
Common Gull (L. canus) .—Common, and nesting in many places, on the low rocky brows of the Scalloway islands, in swampy lowlands near Whiteness, and at the tide-edges at Littlure, near Walls. ”