Mining Guano on the Primary Anchor April 10, 2012

I think they're either albatrosses or gannets and it was a lot easier to feel charitable when there was only one, three days ago. He landed on the stern rail after scoping us out carefully for half an hour. Multiple laps around the boat, checking things out from above and from sea level, evidently convinced bird number one that he's found a good spot to rest. He selected his first perch on the rail above the pushpit seat at the starboard corner, settled into a lengthy session of preening, then tucked his head under his wing and dozed off.

Photo: Gannet, we think. First visitor.

Hundreds of miles offshore there's not much to stand upon. We always feel sympathetic toward birds who need to stretch their feet for a few minutes, or to stay dry for a while, or to relax their wings. For whatever reason, when a bird comes to visit Mersoleil he is welcomed and we are touched by the honor that he chose our boat upon which to rest.

At first.

He was rather in the way when I wanted to relocate a fishing line and I thought when I dragged it across the rail from one side of the boat to the other he'd take flight and go find something else to do. No such thing. In fact, the bird squawked at me once to make certain I realized I was inconveniencing him. Then when I persisted in passing the fishing line across his spot, he stepped over it one foot at a time, scowling at me for my rudeness in disrupting his nap.

Later, I wanted to retrieve something from the lazarette beneath him, but I had been watching him for hours by then and had come to respect his long, hard, sharp beak, a beak that must be strong enough to rip apart a healthy fish in seconds. His feet, too. He has clumsy big grey webbed feet, better suited to swimming that to grabbing onto a perch. Closer inspection had revealed claws on those tootsies, too. Sizeable hooked claws that made me think of an eagle's talons. These are definitely not duck feet, these are the feet that grab and pluck that fish right out of the sea and they do not let go before the victim has been converted from fish to dinner. I'd already made him mad once and now I was reluctant to disturb him again.

Gee, I thought. This is my boat! I'm allowed to go to that lazarette if I want to. It took some pretty elaborate moves, waving my arms and swinging the end of a line around in the air, yelling, and generally making him uncomfortable for me to dislodge the bird so I could approach the starboard stern.

He flew off momentarily, but then resumed those decreasing circles that showed every intention of coming in for another landing, this time at the bow, further away from the maniacal woman. Again, the bird settled in. More preening. Another snooze. He was still there the next morning.

He slept in on the second day and finally, around ten, took off for parts unknown and we didn't see him all day. I fancied he was going to work. He had not eaten in a day or two. It was time to get busy.

When I came back on watch this morning at four there was the bird again up on the bow. With his entire family! There are five of the darned things now. They've deposited corrosive gifts all over the decks and the windows and I am not amused anymore.

I read someplace not long ago about sea birds that were not particularly tasty. 'Greasy and fishy' was the description attributed to their flesh. These six pound beauties are no good to me at all and I really wish they would go away. I know they won't stay forever because eventually we'll be in a climate that doesn't suit them. Won't we?

And now we need to go forward to retrieve the barnacle line and drag it over to the other side of the boat, but I'm not up to picking a fight with all five of them. They've got me outnumbered. Maybe I'll go consult our birds of the world book and find out who they really are. And, if lucky, how to drive them off. Or at least how to make Mersoleil unattractive to them when they come home from work tonight.

I just noticed, it's getting light, that the deck is littered with flying fish again and the birds are showing no interest whatsoever in what could be a free meal. It's the least they could do to clean up the fish on deck for me. No.

Number six has just arrived. He's made ten passes and tried three times to land but is not welcomed by the brood already roosting here. Oh dear. Now bird wars.

Insert photo: Enough already. Cut it out.

I wonder what we have for making a slingshot. This is really not amusing anymore. Tonight it could be a whole flock!

Later�... Not 24 hours after that last comment I had really had it with the damned birds. They were rude and messy and made it difficult for us to do any work at the bow. Robbie finally went forward performing his best imitation of my bird chasing technique, which consists of running at a flock of pigeons in the square waving my arms and yelling and stamping my feet. Something I learned from my son when he was four years old - I've always found it highly amusing and I believe the birds enjoy a little excitement now and then.

Robbie's brawking, the technical term, did the trick and the whole flock eventually flew off the rail with some nasty retorts and much flapping of wings. He reports that one of them was particularly mad at him and made it quite clear by looking him in the eye and giving him a sound scolding.

Just in case the gannets considered their eviction temporary, I remained in the cockpit for a while waving my arms and screaming like a mad woman every time one flew back in to scope out a landing place. They persisted. But so did I and in the end it was one for the humans nothing for the birds. They continued to surround the boat for another day or more, swooping in high arcs and low circles to make sure, at least, that if they were unwelcome no one else was going to get their spot either!

After three days passed the original offender returned alone to have another crack at us. We were nearly 400 miles from the point where we'd first met, but I suppose it's nothing for a large bird to scan the sea from high above. Especially when he knows what he's looking for.

This time he must've thought he had us bested. As he circled the mast and lower spreader his intentions became clear: he would land out of brawking range and start a guano mine right on the cabin roof near the mast. Wonderful.

Immediately I launched into my best maniacal hollering and arm waving routine but he had the advantage of height and he knew I was, what is it? All sound and fury signifying nothing?

Robbie was clever. �"He's next to the hailer! Quick! Give me the loud hailer!�" Robbie's whooping and hollering demonstration was impressive, I thought, and I laughed and clapped my hands afterwards, but the bird only looked down on us both with an air of superiority and judgment, a touch of contempt.

I did have one last weapon with which I knew I could irritate him and maybe drive him off. Leaping from the cockpit and out to the mast, at enormous risk to my face, head and clean hair, I grabbed the starboard running backstay, a line that runs up the mast and is kept coiled at its base. Usually the running back is used to keep the middle of the mast from bending under high wind loads, but today I swung it in wide looping arcs knocking the darned bird on the head with it several times until he was peeved enough to fly off.

He took three more approaches to the spreader, but was each time rebuffed by me with the whip and Robin screaming insulting epithets through the hailer. Good thing we weren't in a marina, eh? Can you picture it?

All this with Mersoleil screaming dead downwind at about 8 kts in 20-25 kts of wind.

Finally he flew off to sleep on the surface of the water once again, the normal behavior for pelagic birds. But we are not fooled. He'll be back. We'll be ready.

Thinking again about that slingshot.

It's like geese on the golf course. You think they're quaint and charming, from a distance. Until you get closer and find out what they're really like!