Rissa tridactyla
The Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) is a medium-sized, elegant gull, instantly recognizable by its short, jet-black legs and the 'dipped in ink' appearance of its wingtips, which conspicuously lack any white spots. Adults average 37-41 cm in length with a wingspan of 91-105 cm and weigh between 300-525g. Their breeding plumage features a pristine white head and underparts, a gray back, and gray wings that transition sharply to black at the primaries, complemented by a yellow-green b...
Primarily a pelagic species, spending most of its life at sea in open oceanic waters, only coming ashore to breed on steep, rocky coastal cliffs, islets, and man-made structures.
Primarily piscivorous, feeding on small schooling fish such as capelin, sandlance, herring, and juvenile cod, supplemented with marine invertebrates like crustaceans, squid, and polychaete worms, mostly caught by surface-feeding or shallow plunge-diving.
Black-legged Kittiwakes are highly social and diurnal, spending their non-breeding lives far out at sea, often roosting on the water. Their foraging strategies involve surface-seizing small fish, crustaceans, and other marine invertebrates, frequently employing shallow plunge-dives or dipping whi...
The Black-legged Kittiwake boasts a circumpolar distribution across the Northern Hemisphere, breeding in immense colonies on steep coastal cliffs and islands of the Arctic and subarctic regions. Its breeding range encompasses significant portions of the North Atlantic (e.g., Greenland, Iceland, N...
Least Concern
- The Black-legged Kittiwake's common name is an onomatopoeia derived directly from its distinctive 'kitti-waak' call. - Unlike most gulls, outside the breeding season, they are truly pelagic, spending months or even years far out on the open ocean, often thousands of miles from land. - They poss...