The Chase
This is a Long-tailed Skua chasing an Arctic Tern in Spitsbergen. Small numbers of this skua/jaeger breed in the Svalbard archipelago because they are usually reliant on lemmings for food, but there are no lemmings on Svalbard. So they have to resort to the family business of mugging other seabirds for their food. I say family business because Arctic Skuas (aka Parasitic Jaegers) are inveterate muggers. When birds have ingested food it first goes into the crop, which is just a storage place before the food continues on to the gizzard where it is macerated then passed down for digestion. So if and when this Arctic Tern regurgitates its last meal to stop the chase the food is undigested from the crop. So it's a bit like having the contents of its shopping bag taken by a mugger, rather than being chased until it is sick.
Long-tailed is the smallest and lightest of the Skua/Jaeger family and you can see here that it isn't that much bigger than its Arctic Tern victim. You can also see its distinctive long tail, which is noticeably shorter in Arctic Skua/Parasitic Jaeger. The background here is patchy, melting snow on a mountainside.
The Chase
This is a Long-tailed Skua chasing an Arctic Tern in Spitsbergen. Small numbers of this skua/jaeger breed in the Svalbard archipelago because they are usually reliant on lemmings for food, but there are no lemmings on Svalbard. So they have to resort to the family business of mugging other seabirds for their food. I say family business because Arctic Skuas (aka Parasitic Jaegers) are inveterate muggers. When birds have ingested food it first goes into the crop, which is just a storage place before the food continues on to the gizzard where it is macerated then passed down for digestion. So if and when this Arctic Tern regurgitates its last meal to stop the chase the food is undigested from the crop. So it's a bit like having the contents of its shopping bag taken by a mugger, rather than being chased until it is sick.
Long-tailed is the smallest and lightest of the Skua/Jaeger family and you can see here that it isn't that much bigger than its Arctic Tern victim. You can also see its distinctive long tail, which is noticeably shorter in Arctic Skua/Parasitic Jaeger. The background here is patchy, melting snow on a mountainside.