Gulls, Terns And Auks

This group gathers Birds subcategory members belonging to the remaining branches of the order Charadriiformes not already placed among this subcategory's shorebirds, the gulls, terns and skuas of the suborder Lari and the auks of the family Alcidae. Gulls are typically larger, often scavenging opportunistic feeders found along coasts and, in several species, well inland; terns are usually smaller and more streamlined, plunge-diving for fish from the air; the skuas are predatory and piratical, often stealing food from other seabirds rather than catching their own; and the auks, the puffins, murres, guillemots, the little auk and the razorbill, are stocky diving seabirds of colder northern waters that use their wings to swim underwater in pursuit of fish, a role filled in the Southern Hemisphere instead by the unrelated penguins. Most members of this group nest in dense colonies on sea cliffs, rocky islands or open beaches, often returning to the exact same nesting site year after year.