Dovekie

Alle alle

Tiny Arctic auk, palm-sized and tuxedoed. Migrates in flocks that darken the cliffs of Greenland.

Population: Global population roughly 16–36 million individuals (BirdLife/IUCN estimate); some regional/European estimates range as wide as 9.2–82 million mature birds depending on methodology; overall trend decreasing (notably in North America; European trend unknown)
Habitat: Breeds in dense colonies on rocky scree slopes and boulder fields of high Arctic sea cliffs, nesting in rock crevices; spends the rest of the year pelagic, wintering across the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans, often near the pack-ice edge
Fun fact: The Dovekie (Little Auk) is the only member of the genus Alle and is among the most abundant seabirds on Earth, with some Arctic cliff colonies numbering over a million breeding pairs.
Range: Circumpolar high Arctic breeder — Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard (Spitsbergen), Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land, and small Bering Sea colonies (Little Diomede, King, St. Lawrence, St. Matthew, Pribilof Islands); winters across the Arctic and North Atlantic, south to northern Great Britain in the eastern Atlantic and Nova Scotia/northeastern US in the western Atlantic, occasionally further south after storms
Diet: Primarily tiny crustaceans (copepods and other zooplankton) taken by visually-guided suction/pursuit diving rather than true filter-feeding — a single ~150g adult can consume roughly 60,000 copepods a day; also small amphipods, mollusks, and occasionally small fish
Size: 0.2 m
Wingspan: 0.36 m
Lifespan: 25 years

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