Day of the Dovekie

A large scale (extratropical) low pressure system named Storm Darragh brought gales and driving rain across the Atlantic to the European western seaboard on 7th December. As it tracked across the UK northerly gales ensued moving to a sustained nor’easter. Little Auk Alle Alle, a tiny denizen of the high Arctic and the Northern Hemisphere’s most numerous seabird, become displaced (and occasionally ‘wrecked’) in such conditions.

The sustained rough seas drives their zooplankton food to deeper waters beyond the reach of this expert fisher. Weakened by poor feeding conditions, Dovekies - as they are known in North America - are displaced from their Arctic wintering grounds into the North Sea. As conditions eased, Little Auks were observed flying north past many East Anglian coastal vantage points as they orientated back out of the North Sea basin.

I spotted a couple of these delightful and impossibly fragile creatures whirring north close inshore having been blown into the maelstrom of surf on my local beach. Diving through the procession of waves, they powered back out to sea on a bearing for home - the Krill-rich high Arctic waters. The first two photos below are of a wrecked Little Auk on Oulton Broad, Suffolk, in December 2021.