Great Skua - status

Stercorarius skua

Passage migrant and occasional winter visitor.

The Great Skua has the most restricted breeding range of the skuas that have been recorded in Pembrokeshire, nesting in Scotland, Faroes, Iceland, Jan Mayen, along the Norwegian coast to Bear Island and Svalbard, and into the Russian Kola peninsula. They also winter further north than the other skuas, principally in the Bay of Biscay and off North Africa. Some remain at our own latitude.

Mathew (1894) gives only one record of a Great Skua for Pembrokeshire, shot in Solva Harbour in 1894 but also quotes Sir Hugh Owen as stating: “is always to be seen in Goodwick Bay in a good Herring season”. It was next recorded in the county when one was seen at The Smalls in July 1955 and between then and 1979 there were records in 21 years, with a mean of five birds per annum and a maximum in any year of 18 in 1974. The species could be regarded as a scarce bird in the past and the literature generally regards it as increasing from about 1900 onwards, the Pembrokeshire record reflecting this.