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Foul gulls

Bill finds fulmars all over the place on St Kilda and some are fluffy chicks. But they're not as innocent as they look. Now you can well imagine that a hungry St Kilda resident would regard this chick as a delicacy because it's a bird which is absolutely a roll of fat and little else so there's plenty of food on it. However they would also use it for oil - in oil lamps, probably for cooking, maybe keeping leather soft, many, many different uses. It seems rather unfair therefore that the word fulmar actually derives from some ancient language meaning 'Foul gull'. The nasty bit is when they spit at you - they can spit a heck of a long way and what they hit you with is called 'Fulmar oil' it smells absolutely appalling. Rumour had it that the St Kildan's themselves, due to their intimate contact with fulmars, did pong a bit.

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