Country diary 1974: A porcine mystery on the Bass Rock

20 December 1974: There are no pigs on the island but near some waddling gull chicks I picked up a dried out tailBASS ROCK: A visit to the Bass Rock is always a delightful experience. Unless the weather conditions are favourable it is not always possible to make a landing on this precipitous islet for it rises sheer out of the North Sea like some giant basalt needle. It is only practical to land on its west side and even this can be difficult when there is anything much of a sea-swell. We made an easy landing from a coble from North Berwick. Immediately I was struck by the amazing sight of the enormous giant mallow weeds which grow to the size of pine trees and in the distance look remarkably like them. There is a sort of concrete ladder to the red-painted foghorn on the summit. All around are the innumerable gannets which are the solan geese of yesteryear. They are fascinating sea birds these with their formidable massive beaks and their astonishing powers of vertical diving.Amongst the nesting gannets were numbers of herring gulls. It was near some waddling gull chicks that I picked up a curious object. It puzzled me to start with until I realised it was a dried out pig's tail. But how had it got to the top of the Bass? There are no pigs on the island. I took it home and photographed it. Quite some time later the solution of this porcine relic's presence on the Rock came to me. I discovered there was a large pig farm near Tantallon Castle on the Scottish mainland 14 miles to the west of the Bass. Here regularly numbers of pigs are slaughtered. Some parent herring gull had obviously found this morsel and had flown with it oversea, as a titbit or plaything for her downing chicks. Continue reading...