Wildlife
Guillemots are the most common auk found in the British Isles. During spring these perky seabirds gather in massive and tightly packed breeding colonies, known as loomeries, on coastal cliffs and rock stacks. The females lay a single egg directly on a ledge. This might seem precarious, but their eggs are conical to prevent them rolling off the edge. When the chicks are three weeks old they have to take a dramatic plunge from their rocky shelf into the ocean below. Guillemots are also commonly called murres after the deep murmurings made by groups of nesting and fishing birds.
See a summer’s seabird ‘city’ spectacular.
Scientific name: Uria aalge
Rank: Species
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Bird monument
The Farne Islands' Pinnacle Rocks are a birders paradise.
The Farne Islands' Pinnacle Rocks are a birders paradise.
Life on the ledge
Guillemots lay their oddly-shaped eggs on exposed cliffs.
Guillemots lay their oddly-shaped eggs on exposed cliffs.
Jumping jumplings
It's a death-defying leap or becoming a gull's dinner for guillemot chicks.
It's a death-defying leap or becoming a gull's dinner for guillemot chicks.
The following habitats are found across the Guillemot distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Least Concern
Year assessed: 2009
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
The Common Murre or Common Guillemot (Uria aalge) is a large auk. It is also known as the Thin-billed Murre in North America. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North-Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming to land to breed on rocky cliff shores or islands.
Common Murres have fast direct flight but are not very agile. They are more manoeuvrable underwater, typically diving to depths of 30–60 m (100–200 ft), and depths of up to 180 m (600 ft) have been recorded.
Common Murres breed in colonies at high densities, nesting pairs may be in bodily contact with their neighbours. They make no nest, their single egg is incubated on a bare rock ledge on a cliff face. Eggs hatch after ~30 days incubation. The chick is born downy, and can regulate its body temperature after 10 days. Some 20 days after hatching the chick leaves its nesting ledge and heads for the sea, unable to fly, but gliding for some distance with fluttering wings, accompanied by its male parent. Chicks are capable of diving as soon as they hit the water. The female stays at the nest site for some 14 days after the chick has left.
Both male and female Common Murres moult after breeding and become flightless for 1–2 months. In southern populations they occasionally return to the nest site throughout the winter. Northern populations spend the winter farther from their colonies.
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Adapted to swimming
Carnivorous
Colonial
Adapted to flying
Acoustic communication
Monogamous
Moulting
Egg layer
Parental investment
Predator