Black Legged Kittiwake

by Claudio Bacinello

Title

Black Legged Kittiwake

Artist

Claudio Bacinello

Medium

Photograph

Description

Black Legged Kittiwake perched outside its cliffside nest in Newfoundland, Canada.

Selected by Audubon Magazine as one of the top 100 images of 2015.

In North America, this species is known as the black-legged kittiwake to differentiate it from the red-legged kittiwake, but in Europe, where it is the only member of the genus, it is often known just as kittiwake.

The adult is 37�41 cm (15�16 in) in length with a wingspan of 91�105 cm (36�41 in) and a body mass of 305�525 g (10.8�18.5 oz).[3] It has a white head and body, grey back, grey wings tipped solid black, and have black legs and a yellow bill. Occasional individuals have pinky-grey to reddish legs, inviting confusion with red-legged kittiwake. In winter, this species acquires a dark grey smudge behind the eye and a grey hind-neck collar. The name is derived from its call, a shrill 'kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake'.

It is a coastal breeding bird around the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans, found most commonly in North America and Europe. It breeds in large colonies on cliffs and is very noisy on the breeding ground. Cliff nesting for gulls occurs only in the Rissa species, and the kittiwake is capable of utilizing the very sheerest of vertical cliffs, as is evident in their nesting sites on Staple Island in the outer Farne Islands (Hogan, 2005).

Uploaded

April 27th, 2015

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