Stercorarius skua
Silhouette: Liam Quinn (photo) and Albertonykus (silhouette) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The great skua (Stercorarius skua), sometimes known by the name bonxie in Britain, is a large seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. It is roughly the size of a herring gull. It mainly eats fish caught at the sea surface or taken from other birds.
The great skua was described from the Faroe Islands and Iceland by the Danish zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich in 1764 under the binomial name Catharacta skua. It is now placed in the genus Stercorarius that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The English name and species name "skua" is believed to originate from the Faroese skúvur or skúgvur [ˈskɪkvʊər] and is the only known bird name to originate from the Faroes that has come into regular use elsewhere. In Britain, it is sometimes known by the name bonxie, a Shetland name of Norse origin. The genus name Stercorarius is Latin and means "of dung"; the food disgorged by other birds when pursued by skuas was once thought to be excrement. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
Great skuas measure 50–58 cm (20–23 in) long and have a 125–140 cm (49–55 in) wingspan. One study found that 112 males weighed... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vatnajokull National Park | 🇮🇸 Iceland | |
| 2 | Svalbard | 🇳🇴 Norway | |
| 3 | Doñana National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 4 | Wadden Sea National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Great Skua sighting in Svalbard on a given day, based on 390 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 19th most-seen of the 48 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and June
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Great Skua in Svalbard on a given day, against about 10% in February–April and October, the lowest months. November to January have too few records to rate.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Great Skua sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 4
Of the 4 parks where we can rate Great Skua sightings, Svalbard ranks 2nd at about 20%. The best odds are in Vatnajokull National Park (Iceland, about 60%).
Same genus: Stercorarius
The closest relatives of the Great Skua that you can see in Svalbard (genus Stercorarius, Skuas and Jaegers) are Parasitic Jaeger (about 80%) and Long-tailed Jaeger (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Great Skua is recorded against all the birds logged in Svalbard (390 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
