Main content

Brown Skua

Liz Bonnin presents brown skua hunting over an Antarctic landscape.

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Liz Bonnin presents brown skua hunting over an Antarctic landscape. These bulky brown birds with their hooked death dealing bills are often cast as villains alongside the apparently helpless and lovable penguins. But skuas are highly efficient predators, their skills honed to find the maximum food they can in a largely barren landscape. They're resourceful pirates, forcing other birds to drop or disgorge their catches. They also scavenge around fishing boats or loiter at seal colonies where carcases are easy meat. But a penguin rookery which may have hundreds of pairs of birds provides a real bounty, where waiting for an opportunity, the keen-eyed skua swoops to seize its next victim which if it is small enough, will even swallow it whole.

Producer : Andrew Dawes

Available now

1 minute

Last on

Fri 19 May 2023 05:58

Brown Skua (Stercorarius antarcticus / Catharacta antarctica)

Webpage image courtesy of Ole Jorgen Liodden / naturepl.com.

NPL Ref 漏 Ole Jorgen Liodden / naturepl.com.

Recording of brown skua by Theodore A Parker, III / Ref: ML 42308

This programme contains a 聽kindly provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; recorded by Theodore A Parker, III; on 1 Feb 1988 in Albatross Island, South Georgia, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands.

Broadcasts

  • Thu 8 Jan 2015 05:58
  • Wed 9 Dec 2015 05:58
  • Sun 8 Dec 2019 08:58
  • Wed 8 Sep 2021 05:58
  • Fri 19 May 2023 05:58

Podcast: Planet Puffin

Podcast: Planet Puffin

Exploring all things puffin - the silly and the serious, the scientific and the cultural.

Try this new podcast

Five stories of birds and birdsong are told by the people inspired by them.

Podcast