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Black-legged Kittiwake

Status Common in winter, uncommon in summer. Breeds. Occurs widely in large numbers from October to April, mainly on offshore waters, but it occasionally comes inshore and even inland as a result of storms at sea. On 20 October 1968 large numbers moved into Halifax Harbour just ahead of hurricane "Gladys." During fall and winter the bird can be seen in huge numbers off Digby Neck and Brier Island; an estimated 48,000 were recorded during the Brier Island Christmas Bird Count on 27 December 1978. It is seldom seen in summer, except far offshore or in the immediate vicinity of its small colonies in northeastern Nova Scotia.

Description Length: 41-46 cm. All plumages: Hind toe absent or very short. Adults in summer: Wings and back pearly gray; ends of primaries are black; rest of plumage white; bill yellow without red spot; feet black. Adults in winter: Similar but crown and nape are suffused with pale gray, and eye has a small dark area behind it. Immatures: Similar to winter adults, but with blackish band across back of neck, white secondaries and inner primaries, and black on outer primaries and lesser wing coverts; tip of tail and bill black; feet brownish.

Breeding The first Nova Scotian colony was discovered on 7 June 1971, by Anthony R. Lock of the Canadian Wildlife Service, on Green Island, a short distance off the coast from Gabarus, Cape Breton County. He estimated it to have 90 to 100 pairs. Nests: The nests were constructed of grasses and seaweeds in typical kittiwake fashion, plastered with mud and guano onto narrow rocky ledges 3-8 m above the ocean surface. Eggs: He examined 14 nests six contained clutches of three eggs, pale brown with darker blotching; seven held two: and the last held but one egg, undoubtedly an incomplete laying. Lock believed this colony had been long established. Since then, four small kittiwake colonies have been discovered in northeastern Nova Scotia, and the total breeding population probably amounted to over 500 pairs in 1983 (A.R. Lock).

Remarks The pattern of the adult kittiwake's plumage is superficially similar to that of the Herring Gull, but it is a smaller bird with black, not flesh-coloured, legs and a lighter, more buoyant flight. The immature bird's plumage is not easily confused with that of any other species, except perhaps Sabine's Gull.

Bird-banding has revealed that this bird is a great wanderer. One captured on a trawl off the LaHave Islands, Lunenburg County, on 13 January 1943 had been banded in Iceland on 27 May 1938. Another, killed at Little Fogo Island, Newfoundland, on 20 September 1937 had been banded near Murmansk, USSR, on 19 June 1937. A young bird banded on the nest at North Shields, England, on 26 June 1956 was found dead about 200 km east of Halifax on 1 January 1959.

The name "kittiwake" is derived from the bird's peculiar cry. Fishermen off southern Nova Scotia know it as the "fall gull."