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Little auk
Breeding adult, Spitzbergen
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Alcidae
Genus:	Alle Link, 1806
Species:	A. alle
Binomial name
Alle alle (Linnaeus, 1758)
Subspecies
A. a. alle - (Linnaeus, 1758) A. a. polaris - Stenhouse, 1930
Global map of eBird reports  Year-round range  Summer range  Winter range
Synonyms
Alca alle Linnaeus, 1758

The little auk (Europe) or dovekie (North America) Alle alle is a small auk, the only member of the genus Alle. Alle is the Sami name of the long-tailed duck; it is onomatopoeic and imitates the call of the drake duck. Linnaeus was not particularly familiar with the winter plumages of either the auk or the duck, and appears to have confused the two species. Other old names include rotch, rotche, bullbird, and sea dove, although the latter sometimes refers to a relative, the black guillemot.

They breed on islands in the high Arctic. There are two subspecies; A. a. alle breeds in Greenland, Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard; and A. a. polaris on Franz Josef Land. A small number of individuals Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait with additional breeding individuals thought to occur on King Island, St. Lawrence Island, St. Matthew Island and the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. They also formerly bred on Grímsey just north of Iceland, but are extinct there now. In winter, they disperse widely across the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans, with the largest numbers in the Arctic close to the pack ice edge, and smaller numbers south to northern Great Britain in the eastern Atlantic, and Nova Scotia in the western Atlantic.

Taxonomy

The little auk was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other auks in the genus Alca and coined the binomial name Alca alle. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Ocean of Arctic, Europe and America but this is now restricted to Scotland. The specific epithet is from allē, the Lapp word for the long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis). The species was formerly placed in the genus Plautus, but in 1973 this name was suppressed by the commission of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and now the little auk is the only species placed in the genus Alle that was introduced in 1806 by the German naturalist Heinrich Friedrich Link.

Two subspecies are accepted:

• A. a. alle (Linnaeus, 1758) – Baffin Island (Arctic northeast Canada), northwest, east Greenland, north Iceland, Jan Mayen (northeast of Iceland), Svalbard (north of Norway) and Novaya Zemlya (north of northwest Russia)
• A. a. polaris Stenhouse, 1930 – Franz Josef Land (northeast of Novaya Zemlya, in Arctic Russia); perhaps Severnaya Zemlya (north of central Russia) to St. Lawrence Island (Bering Sea, Alaska)

Description

This is the only Atlantic auk of its size, half the size of the Atlantic puffin, at 19–21 cm (7.5–8.3 in) in length, with a 34–38 cm (13–15 in) wingspan. The adult weight ranges from 130–200 g (4.6–7.1 oz). A. a. polaris is marginally larger than the nominate subspecies. In breeding plumage, the head, neck, back, and wings are black, with a white trailing edge to the secondary feathers, and white fringes on the scapular feathers, and pure white underparts. The bill is short and stubby. They have a small rounded black tail. The lower face and fore neck become white in winter plumage.

Little auks produce a variety of twitters and cackling calls at the breeding colonies, but tend to be silent at sea.

Behaviour and ecology

Food and feeding

The flight is fast and direct, with rapid whirring wing beats due to their short wings. These birds forage for food like other auks by swimming underwater. They mainly eat crustaceans, especially copepods, of which a 150 g (5.3 oz) bird requires ~60,000 individuals per day (equivalent to 30 g  of dry food weight), but they also eat small invertebrates such as mollusks, as well as small fish. Recent evidence suggests that the little auk forages not by filter-feeding on planktonic prey, but by visually-guided suction-feeding. They feed close to the shoreline during the breeding season, and feed near ice edges and coastlines during the winter.

Breeding

Little auks breed in large colonies on scree slopes on marine cliffsides. They nest in crevices or beneath large rocks, and may build rudimentary nests by bringing small pebbles and/or old grasses and lichen into the cavity, where they lay a single egg. Their single pale greenish blue egg is placed in a crevice of the rocks. Like other auks, they are monogamous and have high nest-site fidelity, meaning that the same cavity is often used as a nest site by the same pair, year to year. The eggs are generally incubated by both parents equally, for roughly a month (28–31 days), until chicks begin to hatch at about 25 days. Hatchlings generally weigh about 21 g and are unable to thermoregulate on their own; they are brooded for approximately 5 days until they are able to thermoregulate, after which they are only attended to for feeding by parents. The young fledge from their nests at an age of 26–29 days old, synchronously with others on the colony, usually at night.

Winter

All little auks migrate south by winter into northern areas of the North Atlantic. The species is also commonly found in the Norwegian Sea. Late autumn storms may carry them south of their normal wintering areas, or into the North Sea, and can cause wrecks of these birds, along with other seabirds, at sea and occasionally on land. The British record count was made at the Farne Islands in Northumberland following strong northerly gales on 9–11 November 2007, with 18,381 flying north on 9th and 28,803 on 11th.

The glaucous gull and the Arctic fox are the main predators of little auks at colonies, with other gulls and raptors predating the species as well. In some cases, the polar bear has also been reported to feed on little auk eggs.

Interaction with humans

Due to their habit of feeding near shore during both summer and winter months, the species has been an important source of food for Inuit of Greenland, Baffin Island, and Labrador, as well as at parts of its southern range in eastern Canada.

Kiviaq is an Inuit food from Greenland. It is made by stuffing a seal skin with 300 to 500 little auks. Once full and airtight, the skin is sealed with seal fat and the little auks are left to ferment for 3 to 18 months under a pile of rocks. Caught in spring, little auks are a human food resource in winter. However, Knud Rasmussen's death is attributed to food poisoning by kiviaq.

On the south coast of Newfoundland, Canada, the dovekie is known colloquially as the bull(y) bird or ice bird. The birds were once hunted, stuffed with savoury dressing and oven-baked. It was a food of last resort to prevent winter starvation amongst the fisher people of Newfoundland's outport communities. Shot with BB pellets on ice pans off Newfoundland's south coast, a feed would consist of 5–6 birds per person. Similarly, a hunt continues to occur for murres in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and mainly acts as a subsistence hunt for traditional hunters, who shoot wintering murres near ice flows in coastal waters as a food source.

Conservation

Although populations appear to be decreasing, this is not currently thought to be rapid enough to be of concern for the species in the medium term, especially as global little auk numbers are generally rather fluid. Little auks have been shown to be able to buffer fluctuations in prey availability, caused by climate change, via plasticity in their foraging behaviour, which is likely to make accurate conservation assessments more difficult.

• Little auk swimming and diving.
• Little auk in winter plumage

See also

• Great auk

References

1. ^ BirdLife International (2018). "Alle alle". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2018: e.T22694837A131932114. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22694837A131932114.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
2. Gill F; D Donsker; P Rasmussen, eds. (2020). "IOC World Bird List". v10.2. doi:10.14344/IOC.ML.10.2.
3. Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
4. "Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary s. v. 'rotch'". Retrieved September 6, 2020.
5. ^ "Dovekie Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology". www.allaboutbirds.org. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
6. "Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary s. v. 'sea dove'". Retrieved September 6, 2020.
7. Halpin, Luke R; Willie, Megan MC (2014-01-01). "First Record of Dovekie in British Columbia". Northwestern Naturalist. 95 (1): 56–60. doi:10.1898/NWN13-21.1. ISSN 1051-1733.
8. Booth Jones, Katherine A. (2020). Keller, Verena; et al. (eds.). European Breeding Bird Atlas 2: Distribution, Abundance and Change. Barcelona: European Bird Census Council and Lynx Edicions. p. 406. ISBN 978-84-16728-38-1.
9. ^ del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Sargatal, Jordi, eds. (1996). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 3, Hoatzin to Auks. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. p. 709. ISBN 84-87334-20-2.
10. Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 131.
11. ^ Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 351.
12. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
13. Amadon, Dean; et al. (1970). "Plautus or Plotus Gunnerus, 1761, Plautus Klein, 1760, Plotus Linnaeus, Plautus Brunnich, 1772 (Aves): Proposed rejection or suppression under the plenary powers. Z.N.(S.) 1911". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 27 (2): 110–112.
14. Commission of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1973). "Opinion 999: Plautus Brunnich, 1772 (Aves): suppressed under the plenary powers". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 50 (2): 80–81.
15. Dickinson, E.C.; Remsen, J.V. Jr., eds. (2013). The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. Vol. 1: Non-passerines (4th ed.). Eastbourne, UK: Aves Press. p. 222, Note 12. ISBN 978-0-9568611-0-8.
16. Link, Heinrich Friedrich (1806). Beschreibung der Naturalien-Sammlung der Universität zu Rostock (in German). Vol. 1. Rostock, Germany: Gedruckt bey Adlers Erben. p. 46.
17. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (December 2023). "Noddies, gulls, terns, skimmers, skuas, auks". IOC World Bird List Version 14.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
18. ^ Montevecchi, W. A., and I. J. Stenhouse. 2002. Dovekie (Alle alle). In The Birds of North America, No. 701 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.
19. Harding, A. M. A.; Egevang, C.; Walkusz, W.; et al. (2009). "Estimating prey capture rates of a planktivorous seabird, the little auk (Alle alle), using diet, diving behaviour, and energy consumption". Polar Biology. 32 (5): 785–796. doi:10.1007/s00300-009-0581-x.
20. Enstipp, Manfred R.; Descamps, Sébastien; Fort, Jérôme; Grémillet, David (2018-07-01). "Almost like a whale – first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird". Journal of Experimental Biology. 221 (13): jeb182170. doi:10.1242/jeb.182170. ISSN 0022-0949. PMID 29844199.
21. Reed, Chester A. (1914). The Bird Book. Doubleday, Page & Company.
22. Hogan, C. Michael (2011). "Norwegian Sea". In P. Saundry; C. J. Cleveland (eds.). Encyclopedia of Earth. Washington, DC: National Council for Science and the Environment.
23. "A wreck of little auks". Ocracoke Observer. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
24. Fisher, Ian; Holliday, Steve T., eds. (2008). Birds in Northumbria 2007. Northumberland & Tyneside Bird Club. pp. 155–157. ISBN 978-0-9557406-0-2.
25. Isaksen, K.; Gavrilo, M. V. (2000). "Little Auk Alle alle". In Anker-Nilssen, T.; Bakken, V.; Strøm, H.; Golovkin, A. N.; Bianki, V. V.; Tatarinkova, I. P. (eds.). The Status of Marine Birds Breeding in the Barents Sea Region. Norsk Polarinstitutt Rapportserie. Vol. 113. Tromsø: Norwegian Polar Institute. pp. 131–136. ISBN 978-82-7666-176-7.
26. Freuchen, Dagmar (1960). Peter Freuchen's Adventures in the Arctic. New York: Messner. p. 81.
27. "Eating Narwhal". Smithsonian Magazine. 2009-04-23. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
28. Diski, Gretel (2002-02-16). "Review: This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich". The Guardian. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
29. "Hunting regulations summary for migratory birds: Newfoundland and Labrador". canada.ca. 2010-06-29. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
30. David Grémillet; et al. (2012). "Little auks buffer the impact of current Arctic climate change". Marine Ecology Progress Series. 454: 197–206. doi:10.3354/meps09590.

External links

• Feathers of Little Auk (Alle alle)

v t e Genera of shorebirds and their extinct allies
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Infraclass: Neognathae Clade: Neoaves Order: Charadriiformes
Charadriiformes incertae sedis †Charadriisimilis †Eupterornis? †Fluviatitavis? †Jiliniornis †"Morsoravis" †Nahmavis †Palintropus? †Sarjeantopodus †Scandiavis †Volgavis? †Laornithidae? Laornis †Graculavidae? Dakotornis Graculavus Palaeotringa Telmatornis? Charadrii See below ↓ Scolopaci See below ↓ Lari See below ↓
Charadrii incertae sedis †Cherevychnavis Burhinidae Burhinus Esacus †Genucrassum Pluvianellidae Pluvianellus Chionidae Chionis †Chionoides †Neilus Pluvianidae Pluvianus Pluvianidae Vanellinae †Dolicopterus? Erythrogonys Hoploxypterus Vanellus †Viator Charadriinae Anarhynchus Charadrius †Dorypaltus Elseyornis †Jilniornis Oreopholus Peltohyas Phegornis Pluvialis Thinornis Recurvirostridae Cladorhynchus Himantopus †Kashinia Recurvirostra Ibidorhynchidae Ibidorhyncha Haematopodidae Haematopus
Scolopaci incertae sedis †Hakawai †Scolopacimilis Jacanidae Actophilornis Hydrophasianus Irediparra Jacana †Janipes Metopidius Microparra †Nupharanassa Pedionomidae †Oligonomus Pedionomus Rostratulidae Nycticryphes Rostratula Scolopacidae Actitis Arenaria Bartramia Calidris Coenocorypha †Elorius Gallinago Limnocryptes Limnodromus Limosa †Mirolia Numenius †Nuntius †Paractitis †Parvelorius Phalaropus Prosobonia Scolopax Tringa †Villetus Xenus Thinocoridae Attagis Thinocorus
Lari Alcidae †Divisulcus †Hydrotherikornis †Miocepphus †Pseudocepphus Alcinae Alcini Alca Alle †Pinguinus Uria Synthliboramphini Synthliboramphus Cepphini Cepphus Brachyramphini Brachyramphus Fraterculinae Aethiini Aethia Ptychoramphus Fraterculini Cerorhinca Fratercula †Mancallinae Alcodes Mancalla Miomancalla Praemancalla Dromadidae Dromas Glareolidae †Becassius †Boutersemia †Mioglareola †Paractiornis †"Precursor"? Glareolinae Glareola Stiltia Glareolinae Cursorius Rhinoptilus Laridae Anous Chlidonias Chroicocephalus Creagrus †Feducciavis †Gaviota Gelochelidon Gygis Hydrocoloeus Hydroprogne Ichthyaetus †Laricola Larosterna Larus Leucophaeus †Limicolavis? †Limosavis Onychoprion Pagophila Phaetusa †Pseudosterna Rhodostethia Rynchops Rissa Sterna †Sternalara Sternula Thalasseus Xema Stercorariidae Stercorarius Turnicidae †Cerestenia †Eocliffia? Ortyxelos †Turnipax Turnix

• IUCN Red List least concern species
• Alcinae
• Atlantic auks
• Birds of the Arctic
• Birds of Greenland
• Fauna of Svalbard
• Birds described in 1758
• Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus