Black-legged Kittiwake, Tretåig mås, Rissa tridactyla

The Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) is a seabird species in the gull family Laridae.

This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 as Larus tridactylus. The English name is derived from its call, a shrill 'kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake'.

Listen to the Black-legged Kittiwake


I don't know about you, but I cannot hear the 'kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake' even though I muster all my imagination

The genus name Rissa is from the Icelandic name Rita for this bird, and the specific tridactyla is from Ancient Greek tridaktulos, "three-toed", from tri-, "three-" and daktulos, "toe".

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.

Black-legged Kittiwake, Tretåig mås, Rissa tridactyla

Black-legged Kittiwake, Tretåig mås, Rissa tridactyla
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there

Description
The adult is 37–41 cm in length with a wingspan of 91–105 cm and a body mass of 305–525 g. It has a white head and body, grey back, grey wings tipped solid black, 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.

Breeding
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.

One to two buff spotted eggs are laid in the nest lined with moss or seaweed. The downy young of kittiwakes are white, since they have no need of camouflage from predators, and do not wander from the nest like Larus gulls for obvious safety reasons.

At fledging, the juveniles differ from the adults in having a black 'W' band across the length of the wings and whiter secondary and primary feathers behind the black 'W', a black hind-neck collar and a black terminal band on the tail. The old fisherman's name of "tarrock" for juvenile kittiwakes is still occasionally used.

Feeding
They are fish feeders, and are more pelagic than Larus gulls outside the breeding season. They do not scavenge at landfill like some other gull species.

Subspecies
There are two races of black-legged kittiwake:

• Rissa tridactyla tridactyla – (Linnaeus, 1758): nominate, found in the North Atlantic Ocean, is unique among the Laridae in having only a very small or even no hind toe.

• Rissa tridactyla pollicaris – (Ridgway, 1884): found in the north Pacific Ocean, has a normally developed hind toe (as the name pollex, meaning thumb, suggests).


Conservation status
Black-legged Kittiwake, Tretåig mås, Rissa tridactyla
Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015.



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

www.birdforum.net


Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 9 July 2015
Location: Borgarfjörður Eystri, Iceland


Black-legged Kittiwake, Tretåig mås, Rissa tridactyla
Black-legged Kittiwake - 9 July 2015 - Borgarfjörður Eystri, Iceland

Black-legged Kittiwake, Tretåig mås, Rissa tridactyla
Black-legged Kittiwake - 9 July 2015 - Borgarfjörður Eystri, Iceland

Black-legged Kittiwake, Tretåig mås, Rissa tridactyla
Black-legged Kittiwake - 9 July 2015 - Borgarfjörður Eystri, Iceland



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