From Opus

Alternative Name: Pomarine Skua

Photo by tcollins
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, February 2007

Stercorarius pomarinus

[edit] Identification

53cm including 8cm tail projection of broad twisted streamers
Pale Adult

• Black cap
• Dark upper parts
• White underneath with brown breast band and flank bars
• White flash on outer wing

Dark Adult all dusky-brown body
Juveniles and immature variably mottled buff/brown

[edit] Similar Species

• Arctic Skua

[edit] Distribution

Dark phased
Photo by IanF North Gare, Seaton Carew, Cleveland, UK, November 2007

Far north of Eurasia and North America. It is a migrant, wintering at sea in the tropical oceans.

[edit] Taxonomy

Monotypic^[1]

[edit] Habitat

It nests on arctic tundra and islands

[edit] Behaviour

[edit] Breeding

It lays 2-3 olive-brown eggs in grass lined depressions.

[edit] Diet

Its diet includes lemmings and other rodents on the breeding grounds.

It will also kill birds up to the size of Common Gull.

[edit] Vocalisation

[edit] References

1. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.
2. Wikipedia
3. Birdwatchers Pocket Guide ISBN 1-85732-804-3
4. Collins Pocket Guide to British Birds 1966
5. Collins Field Guid 5th Edition

• List of references

[edit] External Links