^ 



46. Has a sea gull, albatross, or other sea bird ever flown across 

 the ocean? 



Some sea birds live along the coast and rarely travel far from shore. 

 Others spend their lives over the ocean returning to land only to nest. 

 Sea gulls are coastal birds, so they would not normally cross the ocean. 



However, many oceanic birds 

 banded in Europe have been 

 recovered in North America. 

 Kittiwakes banded by scien- 

 tists in the Barents Sea area 

 have been recovered in New- 

 foundland 4 months after 

 banding. Puffins, fulmars, and 

 petrels also are known to have 

 crossed the Atlantic from Eu- 

 rope to North America, and 

 the Arctic skua and the At- 

 lantic cormorant fly from 

 Northern Europe to the Afri- 

 can coasts. 



By far the most impressive 

 travelers are the Arctic tern 

 and the albatross. The Arctic 

 tern, which is the size of a 

 small sea gull, regularly mi- 

 grates from its breeding 

 grounds in the Arctic to the 

 Antarctic. It molts in the Antarctic and returns to the Arctic to nest 

 each year. The albatross is also an oceanic bird, returning to land only 

 to nest. Banding records indicate that albatrosses fly around the world, 

 especially during their first few years of life. 



Belopolskii, L. O. 



Ecologyof Sea Colony Birds of the Barents Sea, 1957. (Translation), 

 Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1961. 



Salomonsen, Finn 



The Food Production in the Sea and the Annual Cycle of Faeroese 

 Marine Birds, Oikos 6(1): 92-1 00, 1 955. 



Solyanik, G. A. 



"Discovery of a Banded ?o\ar Sterna Paradisae Brilnn in the Antarc- 

 tic," Soviet Antarctic Expedition 2:28-31 (translation), 1959. 



Vaucher, Charles 



Sea Birds, Dufour Editions, 1963. 



51 



