Long-tailed Jaeger

Stercorarius longicaudus Vieillot, 1819

Long-tailed Jaeger, Stercorarius longicaudus, is a seabird in the skua family that breeds across the Holarctic Arctic tundra of North America and the Palearctic, including Greenland, northern Scandinavia, Siberia and Kamchatka, as well as Alaska, Arctic Canada, Ellesmere and Baffin Island. Outside the breeding season it is highly pelagic and ranges far south into offshore waters off Africa, Madagascar, Australia, Peru, Chile and eastern central Argentina. It is the smallest member of its family, and adults are distinctive with a grey back, black cap, dark wing feathers without a white flash and a very long tail.

Order

Charadriiformes

Family

Stercorariidae — Skuas

Breeding range

North America, Palearctic: Holarctic high and low Arctic tundra, locally subarctic: nw, se Greenland, Arctic n Scandinavia to ne Siberia and Kamchatka (e Russia); Arctic and w, s Alaska through Arctic Canada to Ellesmere and Baffin is.

Nonbreeding range

highly pelagic and southerly: to offshore subantarctic and subtropical waters off w, sw, se Africa, s Madagascar, s Australia, Peru, Chile and ec Argentina