Incoming Tystie

The Black Guillemots are struggling to feed their chick. There’s even an outside possibility they have two chicks that they are struggling to feed, hidden in their shattered rock cave home. Every time they make a high-speed approach to their nest with a fish, normally a Butterfish, the Arctic Skuas are waiting to pursue them and rob them of their youngster’s food.

They sit riding the waves with their fish in their beak and wait until they think the coast is clear. Then they make a dash for it, trying different routes to the nest in an attempt to foil their pursuers. Sometimes they appear to make reconnaissance flights before going fishing again to see if the coast is clear of Arctic Skuas.

Here’s one on a close flypast as I sit appreciating the ancient battle being waged between the species, with the Black Guillemot and Arctic Skua chicks’ lives at stake.

Nature is brutal. It’s not survival of the fittest, it’s survival of the best fit to their environment.

I’m hoping that both of them make it.