This is Bird Note.

The cry of the kitty wake rings out across the northern ocean.

Kitiwakes were well known to even the earliest northern seafarers.

Named for its rhythmic calls, the black-legged Kitty Wake,

as it's known in North America, is a dapper oceanic gull.

The tips of its pale gray wings look as though they've been dipped in black ink.

Unlike many gulls, kitty wakes spend most of the year at sea and are seldom seeing inland.

Vast numbers live on the Bering Sea, where they are by far the most abundant gull.

Ornithologist Arthur Bent wrote of nesting kitty wakes,

This species is always associated in my mind with the dark frowning cliffs of the

frozen north, which tower for hundreds of feet above the stormy icebound seas until lost to sight

in shrouds of mist and fog, a safe retreat in which to raise their hearty offspring.

In winter, black-legged kiddie wakes can be found along the west coast from southern Alaska to Baja, California,

and along the east coast from Labrador to Florida.

For bird note, I'm Michael Stein.

Bird Note gives you the sounds of birds every day.

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At Bird Note Radio.