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Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Great Skua

Great Skua

(Bonxie)

Stercorarius skua

Photograph © Terry Fountain
St Kilda - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
20th April, 2007

Summer adult

 

Our Great Skua photographs :

Great Skua Flight	Great Skua Flight	Great Skua Flight	Great Skua	Great Skua	Great Skua	Great Skua Chick still downy	Great Skua Chick 1 week later

 

• Great Skua (Bonxie)
• Stercorarius skua - Catharacta skua
• UK: Passage visitor, migrant breeder
• UK: 9600 pairs in Summer BTO
• WI: Fairly common migrant breeder (100 - 999 breeding pairs), and passage visitor (small numbers)
• Adults stout & dark, streaked grey-brown, black cap, juveniles warm-brown, unstreaked below, tail short & square-ended - blunt. Flight direct & powerful. ID from other skuas: Herring Gull size, barrel chest, white wing flashes
• Breeds: Western Isles, North Scotland, Faeroes, Iceland, Norway
• Winters: North Atlantic, North & South America, Spanish Coast, Africa
• Habitat: Coastal moorland, rocky islands, Winter: seacoasts
• Diet: Fish from sea, other seabirds (kill to size great black-backed gull), piracy (robs terns, gulls, gannets!)
• Listen to Great Skua RSPB site
• Similar birds Arctic Skua, Pomarine Skua , Long-tailed Skua

 

Great Skua records in the Western Isles

Fairly common migrant breeder (100 - 999 breeding pairs), and passage visitor (small numbers)
(Source: Outer Hebrides Birds Report)

On the chart below the darker the shade of blue the more abundant the bird is during a month or the more likely you are to see it.

J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D

(Source: Outer Hebrides Birds Checklist)

 

 

 

Other local bird photographs

Sources of information for the bird sightings section

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