A fairly miserable day to
get fish out of the net. Note the two skuas waiting
patiently to pick up any tasty tit-bits that have also been
brought up with the net.
You often hear of how skuas
are hardened criminals with no sense of decorum and will mug
small children and old people for the slightest hint of
food. However, ours were far more refined and would sit and
wait like this, if nothing was forthcoming they would go on
their way again.
We had two pairs of
base-skuas, the Reds and the Blues named for which side of
the base they lived, there was a skua-landing pad outside
the kitchen window, painted red on one side and blue on the
other. One side was uphill (red) the other side downhill
(blue). The skuas would fly the couple of hundred meters
from their nest to the pad and get fed. If they were very
fully fed, rather than make the effort to fly home, they
would sometimes just flap down to ground level and walk home
instead.
Paul Ward -
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prior written permission.
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