Two More Unusual Gull Sightings In Bermuda

Following sightings last week of Bonaparte’  Gulls on the island — apparently blown here by the recent spate of bad winter storms — the Bermuda Audubon Society yesterday [Mar. 16] reported on two more species of gull rarely seen here.

An adult Kittiwake was seen in the Little Sound while this Iceland Gull was spotted swooping over the Watford Bridge area at the West End.

Kittiwakes are coastal breeding birds ranging in the North Pacific, North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. They form large, dense, noisy colonies during the summer nesting period, often sharing habitat with murres. They are the only gull species that are exclusively cliff-nesting.

The Iceland Gull is a large gull which breeds in the Arctic regions of Canada and Greenland — but not Iceland, where it is only seen in the winter.

It is migratory, wintering from in the North Atlantic as far south as the British Isles and northernmost states of the eastern USA, as well as in the interior of North America as far west as the western Great Lakes.

– Photo courtesy of Bermuda Audubon Society

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Category: All, Environment