Seton Gordon

Seton Paul Gordon FZS, CBE (11 April 1886 – March 1977) was a Scottish naturalist, photographer, folklorist, and author.

Quotes

Many a time I have sat up all night to take notes on the wakening of the birds, which, in this part of the world, commence to sing considerably earlier than their English relations. In June, the Thrush and Blackbird are often in song before 2 o'clock a.m., while the Sandpipers and Oystercatchers by the river never cease to call all night long.
- "Preface". Birds of the Loch and Mountain. London: Cassell & Company. 1907. pp. ix–xi. (quote from p. xi; 181 pages text at archive.org)

For the lover of the grand in nature the mountains have singular fascination. The children of the mountain, too—the stern and impassive eagle and the gentle ptarmigan—seem to have instilled into them the true spirit of the mist, and thus appeal to the nature lover more forcibly than the denizens of less romantic regions. The mountains attract at every season of the year—in winter, when their corries are buried deep under their snowy covering; in spring, when this snowy mantle has been broken by the strengthening sun, aided by soft breezes from the south; and in summer, when an occasional snowfield lingering here and there still reminds one of the winter that is past, but when the corries are clothed with grass of an exquisite green.
- "Chapter I. The Mountain Charm". The Charm of the Hills (2nd ed.). London: Cassell & Company. 1914. pp. 1–5. (1st edition 1912; quote from p. 1; text at archive.org)

I think it is possible to tell, by the flight of grouse and ptarmigan, whether they are seeking to escape their hereditary enemy, the eagle, or their more recent but much more deadly enemy, man. As a general rule, when the eagle is the cause of disturbance the grouse fly at a greater height above ground and their flight is more precipitate and aimless than when man is the cause of alarm. It is of interest to realise how strong is the hereditary instinct of dread felt towards the eagle, and in obedience to this instinct grouse will cheerfully face in great numbers a whole line of guns which must spell death to them, rather than approach the locality where the eagle has been spied. I was travelling on the Highland Railway recently, from Inverness to Perth, and just at the county march, where the line borders on the 1500 feet level, I saw a grouse cross the line above the train, flying high and with a distinctive rocking flight. I was almost certain that an eagle, and not the Highland express, was the cause of alarm, and sure enough, on looking out of the opposite window, I saw the enemy there sailing far off above the top of a neighbouring hill.
- "The Golden Eagle". Hill Birds of Scotland. London: Edward Arnold. 1915. pp. 1–40. (quote from pp. 9–10; 300 pages; illustrated; text at archive.org)

There is no native population in Spitsbergen, for no Lapps, Samoyedes, or even Eskimos, have ever settled there. Three hundred years ago the bays and seas of West Spitsbergen were a favourite whale-fishing ground to which most of the seafaring nations of Europe sent fleets of whalers, but the " right whale " is long extinct in Spitsbergen waters, and the whaling industry has now disappeared. Spitsbergen was discovered by the Dutch in 1596; whales were found by Hudson in 1607, and by 1620 the whale-hunting was at its height.
- Amid Snowy Wastes: Wild Life on the Spitsbergen Archipelago. London: Cassell & Company. 1922. p. 2. (text at archive.org)

The ptarmigan, a true mountain dweller, is sometimes the golden eagle's prey. On the Cairngorm Hills I have frequently seen an eagle chasing, in play, a covey or pack of ptarmigan, and seeming to find satisfaction in the bewildering and aimless flight of the terrified birds.
- Wild Birds in Britain. The British Nature Library. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1938. p. 92. (120 pages)

... Ben Lawers is the home of rare alpine plants, one of which, Saxifraga cernua, is found nowhere else in Britain. Although rare birds are protected by Act of Parliament, rare plants have no protection afforded them, perhaps because such protection would be impossible to enforce.
- Highlands of Scotland. County books series. Robert Hale. 1951. p. 81. (328 pages)

Beyond Bernera, we passed the mouth of Glen Beg, where the last of the great MacCrimmon pipers had his farm.
- Highland Days (3rd ed.). Cassell & Company. 1963. p. 186. (232 pages)

The return of the ospreys to nest successfully on a Scots fir on Strathspey in 1959 marked the beginning of a remarkable record of success by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in osprey protection. The osprey, handsome, inoffensive, living entirely on fish, nested in Scotland 100 years ago.
- Highland Summer. Cassell & Company. 1971. p. 70. ISBN 9780304937752. (182 pages; illustrated)

Mr. Seton Gordon is one of the few men of education who have been content to live their life in the Highlands rather than earn what many would consider to be an easier and better living elsewhere. The result is that, being a life-long observer, he knows more about the natural history of a remote region than almost anyone else. He has preferred to diffuse his wide knowledge in the form of popular books rather than as systematic papers, a fact for which many general readers are undoubtedly thankful. We of a younger generation of workers may be sorry that he does not give us a compendium or source-book which he alone could write and which would preserve for us the great variety of knowledge which his sensitive, inquiring mind has gathered.
- F. Fraser Darling, (25 August 1945) "review of A Highland Year by Seton Gordon". Nature 156 (3956): 219–220. DOI:10.1038/156219a0.