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Pomarine Skua
last update: Mar 25, 2009 11:08 AM
Also known as the Pomarine Jaeger
Latin name: Stercorarius pomarinus
Population: 50,000-100,000 individuals
Cites classified: Least Concern
Where found: Circumpolar along Russia’s northern coast, western and northern coasts of Alaska, Canadian mainland around Bathurst inlet and northern Baffin Island
Age/ life expectancy: unknown
Wingspan: 125-140 cm
Length: 46-52 cm
Weight: 550-830 g
Mating/Breeding: Arrival in breeding areas depends on lemming densities. Adults often form pairs, occasionally with their old mates, before establishing territories. Both sexes build the nest, a depression they form by trampling the ground with their breasts and feet. The female usually lays 2 eggs, and both parents incubate. The young are able to leave the nest within two days after hatching, but stay near the nest where their parents feed them pieces of lemmings. The young are dependent on parents for food for two more weeks after fledging, which occurs at 21-27 days. The parents leave the breeding area as soon as young reach independence.
Eggs: 2 brown eggs blotched red-brown
Hibernation: migrates south to the Caribbean, the Atlantic off northern Africa, the Arabian Sea, and the Pacific Ocean off eastern Australia, northern New Zealand, Hawaii and northwestern South America in winter
Hunting Habits: piracy, surface foraging, diving, or scavenging
Feed on: mainly rodents, particularly lemmings, and small birds and eggs in summer. In the winter, they take fish and regularly catch and kill smaller seabirds rather than settling for crop contents
Colour/Body: Light-phase adult Pomarine Skuas have a brown back, mainly white underparts and dark primary wing feathers with a white "flash". The head and neck are yellowish-white with a black cap. Dark-phase adults are dark brown, and intermediate phase birds are dark with somewhat paler underparts, head and neck. All phases have the white wing flash, which appears as a diagnostic double flash on the underwing. In breeding adults of all phases, the two central tail feathers are much longer than the others, spoon-shaped, and twisted from the horizontal.
