Rissa – Kittiwakes

Unlike typical gulls that haunt harbors, fields, and parking lots, kittiwakes are true creatures of the open sea. Sleek, light-boned, and superbly adapted to long flights over cold waters, they spend most of their lives far from land, only touching solid ground during the brief, hectic breeding season. There are just two living species: the widespread black-legged kittiwake, circumpolar across the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and its more restricted cousin, the red-legged kittiwake, found almost entirely on the remote Pribilof Islands and a few nearby colonies in the Bering Sea.

Kittiwakes are named for their distinctive, ringing call—“kit-ti-waake!”—which echoes across their cliffside nesting colonies. And those colonies are spectacular. Instead of nesting on beaches like many gulls, kittiwakes glue their lives to the sheerest cliff faces imaginable. They build small nests of mud, grass, and seaweed on narrow rock ledges, often only wide enough for the adults and a pair of chicks to stand. Entire colonies may number in the tens of thousands, turning vertical rock walls into screaming, fluttering bird cities. Because cliff ledges are limited, competition for space is fierce, and returning adults often squeeze past neighbors with acrobatic precision.

Out at sea, kittiwakes switch roles from cliff dwellers to aerial plankton hunters. They forage by dipping and surface-seizing, fluttering above the water on buoyant, tern-like wings while picking up small fish, krill, copepods, and squid near the surface. Their lightweight bodies and long, narrow wings give them exceptional energy efficiency, allowing them to travel huge distances across the ocean without rest. Black-legged kittiwakes may migrate thousands of kilometers after breeding, wandering across subarctic and temperate waters; red-legged kittiwakes stay closer to the Bering Sea but still range widely in search of food.