“WENKOET” • FULICA ATRA · coot · swimming bird · guillemot

 When I thought I saw a penguin 🐧 (not the kind of surfing this time 🤣), I realized that nature had fooled me. This creature was having a good time in the wind…..(perhaps resting from all the storms….) Guillemots, as the name suggests, are true seabirds that are rarely, if ever, seen inland. They spend their entire lives at sea and only come ashore to breed. Life at sea also carries a danger: oil. Because guillemots also regularly spend time on the water to rest or forage for food, they fall prey to oil more than other species. If a Common Guillemot comes ashore outside the breeding season, there is always something going on: exhaustion, disease or oil. Most guillemots are therefore brought to shelters for oil victims…..