Arctic Skuas caring for Common Eider duckling

Arctic Skuas caring for Common Eider duckling

On 29th July 2018, on a marsh just east of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, I observed a pair of pale-morph Arctic Skuas Stercorarius parasiticus apparently caring for a Common Eider Somateria mollissima ducking; plates 99 & 100. No skua chicks were present, and the Eider was approximately 2–3 weeks old (aged by several Eider biologists from photos).

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