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There are disadvantages to colonial life, particularly the spread of disease. Colonies also attract the attention of predators, principally other birds, and many species attend their colonies nocturnally to avoid predation. [61] Birds from different colonies often forage in different areas to avoid competition. [62]
Birds of subantarctic islands (4 C, 56 P) Suliformes (5 C, 3 P) T. ... The Handbook of Australian Sea-birds; I. Introduced mammals on seabird breeding islands; L ...
The genus Sula was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. [3] The type species is the brown booby. [4] The name is derived from súla, the Old Norse and Icelandic word for the other member of the family Sulidae, the gannet.
In this list of birds by common name 11,278 extant and recently extinct (since 1500) bird species are recognised. [1] Species marked with a "†" are extinct. Contents
The Pacific gull is a large white-headed gull with a distinctively heavy bill.. Gulls range in size from the little gull, at 120 grams (4 + 1 ⁄ 4 ounces) and 29 centimetres (11 + 1 ⁄ 2 inches), to the great black-backed gull, at 1.75 kg (3 lb 14 oz) and 76 cm (30 in).
Because of their striking appearance they are also referred to as "clowns of the sea" and "sea parrots". Although the puffins are vocal at their breeding colonies, they are silent at sea. They fly relatively high above the water, typically 10 m (33 ft) as compared with the 1.6 m (5.2 ft) of other auks. [18]
Cranes are tall wading birds in the family Gruidae. Cranes are found on every continent except for South America and Antarctica and inhabit a variety of open habitats, although most species prefer to live near water. [1] They are large birds with long necks and legs, a tapering form, and long secondary feathers on the wing that project over the ...
The word petrel (first recorded in that spelling 1703) comes from earlier (ca. 1670) pitteral; the English explorer William Dampier wrote the bird was so called from its way of flying with its feet just skimming the surface of the water, recalling Saint Peter's walk on the sea of Galilee (Matthew xiv.28); if so, it likely was formed in English as a diminutive of Peter (< Old French: Peterelle ...