SWOOOSH! It’s a terrifying sound as the huge skua sweeps past us at head height, just a few metres away. We’re being attacked – by birds!
It sounds a bit like a kite being yanked along just above the ground. SWOOSH. It’s still there, and we’re slowly starting to get properly scared. Skuas – as great skuas are almost always called in Scotland – are big birds, with a wingspan of up to a metre and a half. And right now, one of these flying giants has set its sights on us, circling closer and closer.
We’re on Hirta, one of the St Kilda islands. St Kilda is an archipelago packed with birds: gannets, puffins, fulmars – and, unfortunately, skuas too. They favour spots where other birds live, because they ambush their neighbours as they return laden with food and steal their catch straight from them. Aggression is simply part of how they operate.
We’re feeling that aggression firsthand now, as we hike up Mount Conachair. The island’s great cliff face is close by, and countless breeding pairs of birds are currently raising their young there. Skuas always nest close to their victims – though not on the cliffs themselves, but in loose scree or hollows on ordinary ground, like here, on the hillside we’re currently climbing.
Skua nests aren’t lined with anything, so they’re practically invisible. But get close to a chick, and the skuas start attacking the intruder.
Right now, we’re the intruder!
SWOOOSH! The skua circles us again. Even closer this time, then it starts aiming straight for our heads, missing us only by a hair’s breadth. The closer you get to the nest, the more aggressive the defence gets. We must be very close to the nest – we’ve no idea just how close. Only: we don’t want to be, we’ve already changed direction.
The problem: the whole hillside is nesting ground for skuas. The moment we move away from one nest, we’re already approaching the next. We can’t go forward, we can’t go back – only straight through.
“Look at this!” my wife suddenly calls out excitedly, waving at me. “I nearly stepped right on it.”
I have to look three times before I spot it: a small, fluffy little thing lying behind a rock. A skua chick. Two thoughts shoot through my head at once: “I have to get a photo of this!” and “the parents are going to kill us!” With a shaking hand, I capture the tiny creature onto the memory card, though it’s not quite sharp given the excitement:
After that, we head on our way again, jackets held over our heads. When another hiker finally comes towards us, we’re a little puzzled by his posture:
He seems perfectly relaxed about the attack, but why is he holding his hands raised up in a prayer-like pose?
Back in the village, finally safe, other hikers explain to us what that strange posture was all about: skuas always target the highest point of whatever’s threatening them – which is usually your head. You can distract them with your hands, or better still, hold a walking pole or a tripod up in the air, and you’ll be left in peace.
Shame we only found that out afterwards.