Dovekie (Alle alle)
"Theyre small atlantic cold water bird that looks a lot like a penguin! I grew up in a small fishing village and they were very commonly sighted in the shores around the winter, to the point where locals would call them Little Winter Birds" "The cutest little bird you ever did sea :3"
"The flight is direct, with fast whirring wing beats due to the short wings."
Dovekie are also known by a few other names, such as little auk, rotch (or rotche), and sea dove, although sometimes that can refer to the black guillemot as well. They typically eat crustaceans, and will eat up to a fifth of their body weight daily!
Little auks breed in large colonies on marine cliffsides. They nest in crevices or beneath large rocks, usually laying just a single egg. Their typical predators are glaucous gull and Arctic fox, though there have been reports of polar bear feeding on dovekie eggs.
Despite being tiny little guys, there are a few different types of food that can be made of little auk. One dish, known as Kiviaq, is Inuit in origin, from Greenland. A seal skin is stuffed with 300-500 dovekie, then sealed with seal fat and left to ferment for 3-18 months, where it will then be eaten during the winter. In Newfoundland, the birds were stuffed with savory dressing and oven-baked, but were known as a food of last resort in order to prevent starvation. This is likely due to the fact it would take 5 to 6 birds to feed a person, and that the meat is lean.
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