Arctic Skua
Stercorarius parasiticus
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Distribution Britain 113 (+14.1%) Ireland 0
Numbers breeding: Britain 3,200 Ireland 0 European status: 20,000 (17% in Britain and Ireland =3) British population trend: possibly continued losses in prospect How likely are you to record it? 13 squares (0.3%) Ranked 144 |
Early writers reported these birds from very much the same areas as they now breed — the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland and some on the northern tip of mainland Scotland. However they were severely persecuted by gamekeepers and collectors, and at a low ebb 100 years ago, particularly in Caithness and Orkney. With better protection they slowly increased, suffering some setbacks in Shetland where they lost out in competition with the expanding and bigger Great Skua. For a few years, in the 1960s, a bird (or two) summered in Ireland. An estimate of 1,090 breeding pairs in 1969-70 was followed by 3,350 in 1985-87! However almost 2,000 of these were on Shetland where breeding failures and declines were then recorded at many sites, possibly due to sand-eel failures and Great Skua predation. For instance at Foula the high of 280 pairs in 1976 was down by about 57% in 1996 and 1997. Further losses seem very likely.
From
The
State of the Nations Birds
Copyright © 2000 by Chris Mead