Great Skua

The Great Skua is a heavy, barrel-chested seabird that dominates the northern seas it patrols, using sheer size and aggression to steal food from other birds. Its streaky brown plumage and conspicuous pale wing patches make it distinctive even at a distance over open water.

• Body feathers are dark brown with warm rufous and buff streaking and mottling across the back and underparts, giving a scruffy, variegated look rather than a clean solid color
• A bold white patch at the base of the primaries is very conspicuous in flight and often visible even on a shed feather from that area
• Flight feathers are broad, blunt-tipped, and heavily built, reflecting the species' powerful, direct flight
• Tail feathers are short and only slightly wedge-shaped, without central tail projections
• Overall feather structure is sturdy and somewhat coarse compared with the sleeker feathers of the smaller jaegers

• Adults show a consistently dark brown body variably marked with rufous-buff streaking, without the light and dark morphs seen in the smaller jaegers
• Juveniles are more uniformly dark and less streaked, gradually acquiring the mottled adult pattern over a few years
• Sexes are alike in plumage, though females average slightly larger
• A single complete annual molt follows the breeding season, typically completed before or during migration

Great Skuas breed on grassy or heath-covered coastal and island tundra in the North Atlantic, including Scotland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Scandinavia. Outside the breeding season they range widely over the open North Atlantic and adjacent seas, including regular movements south along the coasts of Europe and North America.

This skua is notorious for kleptoparasitism, chasing gulls, terns, and gannets in flight to force them to disgorge or drop food, and it will also take seabird eggs, chicks, and even adult birds at colonies. It nests solitarily or in loose colonies on open ground, defending the nest fiercely by dive-bombing intruders. Its call is a harsh, barking series of notes given mainly near the breeding grounds.