Northern Fulmar

Fascinating facts about the Northern Fulmar

• A northern fulmar can smell a fish from 30 kilometres away — further than the distance between Manhattan and New Jersey. They have nostrils that feed into a tube running along the top of their beak, a detection system so sensitive they hunt in total darkness by scent alone, finding prey on moonless nights when their eyes are useless.
• When threatened by a predator, a northern fulmar vomits a stream of oily stomach fluid with the force and accuracy of a sniper. The stench — rancid fish oil mixed with digestive acids — clings to feathers and is nearly impossible to clean. Many birds that have been hit never fully recover their waterproofing and drown.
• A fulmar can live 50 years and won't breed until it's at least 6 years old, spending those years learning how to read invisible highways of air currents called thermals. They return to the exact same cliff ledge where they were born, sometimes within centimetres, to raise a single chick each year.
• Northern fulmars have colonised the North Atlantic in an explosive expansion: in 1900 there were fewer than 100 known nesting pairs; today there are over 400,000. This boom began when bottom trawlers started dumping fish waste overboard — the birds found a reliable food source and multiplied so fast they've become neighbours on clifftops that were empty a century ago.
• Unlike most seabirds, fulmars don't regurgitate food into their chick's mouth — they produce stomach oil, a concentrated energy source so rich that a chick fed on just this oily secretion gains enough fat reserves to survive a month without eating if a parent dies or foraging fails. It's an insurance policy against starvation.

At a glance

About the Northern Fulmar

As the Northern Fulmar takes to the skies, its wings beat with a slow, deliberate rhythm, propelling it effortlessly across the waves as it rides the wind and currents with an air of serene mastery. With its slate-grey feathers glistening like the sea itself, this bird glides and swoops with a fluid, almost ethereal, motion, its gaze fixed intently on the waters below as it searches for the fish and crustaceans that sustain it. In its element, the Northern Fulmar is a paragon of elegance and adaptability, a true child of the wild, harsh beauty of the northern oceans.

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