‘Arctic Skua’ Painted Stone

One of these beautiful birds landed near me on a beach when I visited the Shetland Islands earlier this year, but my favourite views of them so far were from Portland Bill in Dorset this summer, where I watched a pair far out at sea harassing Terns. They are incredibly nimble, and persistent! They have two colour phases; light, as I have depicted on this stone, and dark, which is uniformly dusky brown. In America, they are known as ‘Parasitic Jaegers’ – parasitic because of the way they steal other bird’s food, and jaeger from the German word for hunter.

Dimensions: 13cm x 9cm

Please keep this stone dry and out of direct sunlight.