Little auk

The little auk (Europe) or dovekie (North America) (Alle alle) is a small auk, the only member of the genus Alle. Alle is the Sami name of the long-tailed duck; it is onomatopoeic and imitates the call of the drake duck. Linnaeus was not particularly familiar with the winter plumages of either the auk or the duck, and appears to have confused the two species. Other old names include rotch, rotche, bullbird, and sea dove, although the latter sometimes refers to a relative, the black guillemot.

They breed on islands in the high Arctic. There are two subspecies; A. a. alle breeds in Greenland, Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard; and A. a. polaris on Franz Josef Land. A small number of individuals Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait with additional breeding individuals thought to occur on King Island, St. Lawrence Island, St. Matthew Island and the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. They also formerly bred on Grímsey just north of Iceland, but are extinct there now. In winter, they disperse widely across the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans, with the largest numbers in the Arctic close to the pack ice edge, and smaller numbers south to northern Great Britain in the eastern Atlantic, and Nova Scotia in the western Atlantic.

This is the only Atlantic auk of its size, half the size of the Atlantic puffin, at 19–21 cm (7.5–8.3 in) in length, with a 34–38 cm (13–15 in) wingspan. The adult weight ranges from 130–200 g (4.6–7.1 oz). A. a. polaris is marginally larger than the nominate subspecies. In breeding plumage, the head, neck, back, and wings are black, with a white trailing edge to the secondary feathers, and white fringes on the scapular feathers, and pure white underparts. The bill is short and stubby. They have a small rounded black tail. The lower face and fore neck become white in winter plumage.

Little auks produce a variety of twitters and cackling calls at the breeding colonies, but tend to be silent at sea.