Skua Lambert M Surhone

Publisher Marketing: Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A skua is a seabird of the family Stercorariidae. The three smaller skuas are called jaegers in North America. The name skua comes from Faroese skugvur but this word only applies to the species Stercorarius skua, and the island of Skuvoy is renowned for its colony of that bird. The generic Faroese term for a skua is kjogvi. Jaeger is derived from the German word Jager, meaning hunter. Skuas nest on the ground in temperate and Arctic regions and are long-distance migrants. They have even been sighted at the South Pole. Outside the breeding season, skuas take fish, offal and carrion. Many are partial kleptoparasites (comprising up to 95% of the feeding methods of wintering birds), chasing gulls, terns and other seabirds to steal their catches, regardless of the size of the species attacked (up to 3 times heavier than the attacking skua). The larger species, such as Great Skua also regularly kill and eat adult birds, such as puffins and gulls, and have been recorded as killing birds of the size of a Grey Heron. On the breeding grounds they commonly eat lemmings, and the eggs and young of other birds.