When fighting they rarely stayed on the ground, but leapt at one another into the air, and one of the illustrations shows two Skuas in the act of doing this.
The skuas had increased considerably in numbers by November 4, and frequently came to the scrap-heap outside our hut.
Very rarely did one of these leave the heap until another came to relieve it as long as there were skuas about, but when the skuaswent the penguins left it too.
In this occupation they exhibited the greatest jealousy, and when there was a hundred times as much blubber on the ground as all the skuas possibly could have eaten, they continually tried to drive each other away.
One day when a high wind was blowing on top of Cape Adare, I had my ice-axe knocked clean out of my hand by one of the Skuasflying straight into the handle, the heavy blow seeming to affect the bird but slightly.
The skuas picked the bones quite clean of flesh, so that the skeletons lay white under the skins, and it was remarkable to what distances they sometimes carried the carcasses, which weighed considerably more than the skuas themselves.
They never attack the adult penguins, who run at them and drive them away when they light within reach, but as the skuas can take to the wing and the penguins cannot, no pursuit is possible.
The following year when at Cape Adare, I expected the same treatment from the Skuas there, but curiously enough, these never did it.
When the penguin chicks are hatched, the Skuas prey upon these in a most cruel manner, and should a chick wander away from the protecting old birds, a Skua is almost certain to pounce upon and kill it.
Through the not less silent quietudes of air the grey skuas swept with curving flight, and the narrow-winged terns made a constant white shimmer.
Vernon Byrd 221 Oil Vulnerability Index for Marine Oriented Birds, by James G.
The Bering Sea ice has a number of large-scale features of importance to birds.
When winds are from the south, it is compressed into a narrow band; when winds are from the north, it is a broad zone composed of bands of ice interspersed with open water.
This movement causes ice to be pushed away from the south side of islands, leaving areas of open water.
Polynias (areas of open water) are found immediately south of the large islands in the northern Bering Sea.
This zone is prevented from forming large floes by the action of swells from the open water to the south.
The skuas are nesting all round and fighting over the remains of the seals which we have killed, and the penguins which the dogs have killed, whenever they have got the chance.
Two skuas appeared at lunch, attracted probably by the pony flesh below, but it was a long way from the sea for them to come.
On September 6th we saw the last narwhals gambolling in the lanes around the ship, and a few days later the last flock of skuas (Lestris parasiticus) took their departure.
Another thing which made us believe in the close vicinity of the sea was that we were daily visited by ivory-gulls and fulmars (Procellaria glacialis), sometimes skuas also.
Before any of the delinquent brooders came back, the skuas had cleared out every unguarded nest, and sailed off with derisive cries.
They saw two other skuas sailing down from the cliff-top, as if to demand their business in skua territory.
About level with the crest of the cliff, some half dozen of the dusky skuas were sailing leisurely.
They knew how to burrow deep holes for their nests, wherein their eggs and nestlings were safe from the skuas and the saddle-backs.
There is a difference, however, between the skuas and the gulls, though they bear a family likeness.
This, however, is nothing, as gulls do not breed on this part of the ness, and but seldom fly over it, being chased by the skuas when they do.
They could carry, no doubt, more fish to their young, but here, at least, the skuas seem hardly in sufficient numbers to make the difference a working one.
As before, it was the skuas who informed me of this, but, in spite of their shrieking, they did not seem to meddle much with the grim, black birds.
This instinct of crouching and lying still when young is one which both the skuas here share with terns, gulls, peewits, etc.
These are those skuas who elect to take their chances at sea, and whenever a tern rises after making his plunge, with a fish in his bill, they rise also and pursue him.
But how the skuasgreeted me, again, with their wild cries, as we climbed the higher slopes where their nurseries are.
These skuas bathe every day, and at all times of it, in the two little meres, or pools rather, amidst the heather, not far from the hut.
At the sloping end, dozens of skuas were busily engaged washing themselves and the flapping of their wings in the water made a remarkable noise, audible at a considerable distance on the hill-tops.
Ordinarily their food is obtained from the water, but at Macquarie Island they live almost entirely upon the carcases left by the sealers, and are usually seen defending their rights against skuas and giant petrels.
We saw several dead ones, crushed out almost flat, and some skuas were busily engaged gorging themselves on the carcases.
The skuas had returned, and on the 19th the advance-guard of the Royal penguins arrived.
The skuas are bare-faced robbers and most rapacious, harassing the penguins in particular.
The skuas take advantage of this peculiarity to the length of waiting about till a chance presents itself, when they swoop down, pick up an egg with their beak and fly off.
Two more skuaswere snared for the evening's dinner.
The skuas were now returning to the island and their numbers and corresponding clamour were daily increasing.
Two Heinkels had somehow broken through the barrier of defending Skuas and were now thundering down to level bomb the Victory far below.
To have continued on eastward would simply have meant a short passing of time before the speedy Skuas caught up with them and shot them out of the air.
This singular habit has given rise to the belief that Skuas feed upon the excrement of the Sea Mew, and to this they owe their name of Dung-birds.
In recompense for these services, the inhabitants are in the habit of throwing to the Skuas the refuse of their fisheries.
Skuas are large (22 inches in length) and very powerfully built birds, having the general form of a Gull.
On either side of the gulls, and closely associated with them in habits and in structure, is a group of birds equally characteristic of the open coast, the skuas and terns.
These skuas rob their neighbours in every latitude; and even in the Antarctic one kind, closely related to our own, makes havoc among the penguins, an episode described by the late Dr.
Gulls and skuas are best watched on some lonely, island, where they breed, and thither we will now transfer ourselves.
But I never saw them annoy the Arctic skuas in this manner.
Had the skuas robbed an albatross, something, perhaps, would have happened.
With regard to the occasional absence of the head, perhaps this is sometimes cut off in catching the fish, or before it is swallowed, which may also have been the case with the herrings brought by the great skuas to their young.
In the skuas we see the habit of obtaining food by forcing another bird to disgorge what it has swallowed, perfected and become permanent, so that the birds practising it have risen--shall we say?
Often when one of the great skuas is circling round, and the other standing at its post, this one will stretch itself up and raise its wings above the back every time its partner passes.
One of the great skuas has now flown right out to sea.
Seals and penguins capture these fish, as also, doubtless, the skuas and the petrels.
Several skuas seen--three seals up in our Bay--several off Pram Point in the shelter of Horse Shoe Bay.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "skuas" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
