Resources Recent bird sightings Bird Photographs Notes: A - Z Index Notes: Taxonomic Index Outer Hebrides Checklist Useful contacts Archived Sightings Wildlife Garden Bird ringing in Lewis

Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Great Skua

Great Skua

(Bonxie)

Stercorarius skua

Photograph © Debbie Bozkurt
Stornoway - Isle of lewis - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
3rd June, 2007

"...a Great Skua sitting in the fields behind me at Marybank. Don't know who was more suprised him or me"

 

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)

 

 

Debbie's online photo album

Other local bird photographs

Sources of information for the bird sightings section

Home • Contact Webmaster • Advertising

Copyright © 2006 Western Isles Netspace.  User Agreement and Privacy policy