About 300 species of birds live on or near the ocean, eating fish and other marine life. These include penguins, skuas, seagulls, guillemots, terns, puffins, skimmers, albatrosses, petrels, fulmars, frigates, gannets, boobies, cormorants, tropical birds and pelicans.

Some species are immersed in water from the air or from high cliffs. Others glide over the surface, collecting food for themselves. Some, such as penguins, may chase their prey by swimming in the water. Most seabirds have waterproof feathers and coarse, webbed legs that help them row or grab slippery fish. Many seabirds gather in large colonies for breeding, often laying one egg.

Seabird Colonies

The vast majority of seabirds gather in huge colonies, often returning to the same place every year to nest. Some species nest on the ground, while others nest on rocks or in burrows. Seaside cliffs are ideal for nesting, as they are beyond the reach of most predators, but are close to the sea, the main source of food for birds.

Interesting fact: Arctic tern makes the longest migration path than any other bird - about 26,000 km between the Arctic and Antarctica.

When their chicks hatch, parents catch fish to feed their young.A dead end can carry about 10 fish in its beak at a time. Birds that feed further into the sea, such as guilds, swallow their catch, and then, returning to their nest, burp it in the beaks of their children.

Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern spends the summer months in the Arctic, raising its young. Then it flies to Antarctica at a distance of about 13,000 kilometers, where it conducts the second summer fishing off the coast. Then he returns to the north. This bird makes the longest migration trip of all birds.. Over its life, it can fly more than 1 million kilometers.

Interesting fact: Albatrosses and petrels only land when they breed. The rest of their lives are spent gliding through the air currents.

Blue-footed gannets

Blue-footed boobies are large seabirds. They nest on the steep cliffs of the Galapagos Islands, off the west coast of South America at the equator. These birds dive into the sea high from the air to catch fish. Their conical bodies cut through water easily when they move below the surface of the sea.

Interesting fact: Seabirds often live much longer than land birds, reaching the age of up to 60 years.

Their beaks are long and pointed, with serrated edges to capture the fish. Both males and females have bright blue legs. Men show their legs during courtship to help attract a partner.

Seagulls

Seagulls are large white or gray birds. In addition to kittivacs, gulls usually live near the coast or inland, rarely going far into the sea.They have a very diverse diet: they catch crabs and fish in shallow water, as well as insects, worms, eggs, small mammals, seeds, fruits, and human waste.

Seagulls take and steal food from other birds. They can loosen jaws, allowing them to eat large-sized foods. There are over 50 species of gulls, including herring gull and black-headed gull. Seagulls gather in large colonies for nesting. They often demonstrate what is called "mobbing behavior" - an attack on potential predators and other attackers.

Interesting fact: Seabirds consume large amounts of salt when they drink and feed. To remove excess salt, they have a special gland above the eyes that releases salt water. She runs along their beaks and flows away.

Magnificent frigate

The magnificent frigate bird lives in the waters of Central and South America. It uses heat flows: warm air flows to fly up to a height of 2500 meters. This interesting, in its way, bird catches fish and squid, descending to the surface of the water. But she also steals from other seabirds, biting their tails, forcing them to release their catch.

During the mating season, the male's throat sac turns red and swells. The larger and redder this “bag”, the more likely it is to attract a partner.

Interesting fact: Some rock-nesting seabirds, such as the guillotes, lay pointy, pear-shaped eggs. They are less likely to roll off the edge of the cliff than if they were rounded.

Chaise

A tropical, seabird that nests in colonies on ocean islands across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. She is also known as Maori Amokura. Having small weak legs, he walks with difficulty on land. However, in the air, tropical birds are clever pilots who often hover before diving into surface waters to grab their prey. They can even attack to catch diving fish in the air.

Interesting fact: frigates never land on water, they always catch their catch in flight.

Pelicans

Pelicans are large seabirds with large sacs on their throats. Their long beaks have a hook bent down at the end of the upper jaw. It is used to catch large fish, which the pelican then throws into the air, so that it slides upside down the esophagus.

A sack for the throat is used to catch small fish from the water, as in a fishing net, and not for storing food and for subsequent digestion, as is sometimes believed. As soon as the pelican has drained the water from his bag, he swallows his prey whole. All pelicans fish from the surface of the water, with the exception of the brown pelican, which usually dives for prey.

Interesting fact: A frigate bird, once known as a warbird, is called so because of its habit of piracy - stealing catches from other birds.

Dead ends

Puffins are small black and white sea birds with orange legs and orange-blue striped beaks. They use their wings to push them through the water in pursuit of fish.Dead ends can hold in their beaks more than 80 small fish that they carry to feed their chicks. Deadlocks nest underground, sometimes in abandoned rabbit minks.

Petrels

Petrels glide, or shift the surface of the water in flight. The short-tailed petrel has long and narrow wings for gliding. Spends his summer on the Australian coast. In April, flies north through the western Pacific Ocean to the Bering Sea. Then it returns through the middle of the ocean in September. Flies about 15,000 kilometers in each direction annually.