Observational records document successful breeding of black-legged kittiwakes in British Columbia, suggesting possible range extension.
The Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla is a widely distributed and well-studied northern hemisphere seabird. Authoritative publications document the existence of breeding colonies in Canada’s Arctic and Atlantic regions but not in the Pacific region. We visited the small (ca. 50 pairs in recent years) kittiwake breeding colony at Holland Rock, British Columbia, in July and August 2021, and documented what we believe to be the first record of successful breeding at this site. Previous records have documented successful breeding no further south than 58° latitude in Alaska, ~600 km to the north, making Holland Rock the southernmost colony in the eastern Pacific.
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Hart et al. (2022) studied this question.
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