Brown Skua

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Liz Bonnin presents brown skua hunting over an Antarctic landscape. These bulky brown birds with their hooked death dealing bills are often cast as villains alongside the apparently helpless and lovable penguins. But skuas are highly efficient predators, their skills honed to find the maximum food they can in a largely barren landscape. They're resourceful pirates, forcing other birds to drop or disgorge their catches. They also scavenge around fishing boats or loiter at seal colonies where carcases are easy meat. But a penguin rookery which may have hundreds of pairs of birds provides a real bounty, where waiting for an opportunity, the keen-eyed skua swoops to seize its next victim which if it is small enough, will even swallow it whole.

Producer : Andrew Dawes