A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1469 entries
guillemot
A guillemot is a black-and-white seabird of northern coasts that flies with fast whirring wingbeats, swims underwater using its wings, and breeds packed shoulder to shoulder on bare cliff ledges without building any nest at all. The egg is laid straight onto the rock and is sharply pointed at one end, so that when knocked it pivots around the point rather than rolling off.
Etymology
The name came into English from French, where it is a form of the personal name Guillaume, meaning William. Naming a bird from a person’s name is a European habit rather than an English one, and the same instinct produced the robin, the magpie once called Margaret, the jackdaw, and the martin. In North America the same bird is a murre, a word of uncertain origin.
Notes
Guillemot colonies are among the densest breeding aggregations of any bird, at over twenty pairs per square yard, and the birds recognize their own egg by its markings, which vary enough between individuals to serve as an address. Chicks leave the ledge before they can fly, jumping to the sea at about three weeks old with the father following, and the pair then swim out together for weeks.