Little auk

The little auk, also called the dovekie in North America, is a small seabird in the family Alcidae and the only member of the genus Alle, making it the smallest auk found in the Atlantic. It measures 19 to 21 centimeters long with a wingspan of 34 to 38 centimeters, about half the size of the Atlantic puffin. It breeds in huge numbers on islands in the high Arctic of the North Atlantic, including Greenland, Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya, and Franz Josef Land, dispersing widely across the Arctic and North Atlantic in winter as far south as northern Great Britain and Nova Scotia. In breeding plumage it has a black head, neck, back, and wings against pure white underparts and a short stubby bill, and it forages underwater mainly for copepods and other small crustaceans. It is listed as Least Concern.