Monster Monday: The Foul Fulmar
Monday, August 22nd, 2016August 22, 2016
The next time you find yourself hiking a rocky cliff along the cool Atlantic coast, you might want to bring a rain poncho, or perhaps even a hazmat (hazardous materials) suit… For you might get sprayed by the vile vomit of an ocean bird called a fulmar. Fulmar is Old Norse (the language of ancient Scandinavia) for foul gull, and the name is well earned. The seabird defends itself by spewing a stream of amber-colored stomach oils onto predators and anything else it deems a threat. The bird’s vomit is sticky and extremely stinky, and it can cause hair, feathers, or clothing to reek of rotten fish for days.
The fulmar is a type of tube-nosed seabird that belongs to the petrel family. It spends most of its life at sea, eating fish, squid, crustaceans, and other ocean prey. It nests along the coast during breeding season. A fulmar nesting colony can number into the thousands. The birds’ calls are composed of loud cackling, braying, and grunting sounds, and it is said that a colony can be heard—and smelled—long before it is seen. A fulmar is most vulnerable, and most likely to shoot its oily defenses, while nesting. Despite its sweet looks, a fluffy fulmar chick is ready to start blasting barf soon after it has hatched. By the time it reaches adulthood, it can hit a moving target from 6 feet (2 meters) away. It can also switch between vomiting one continuous stream and puking in smaller bursts.
The fulmar’s natural enemies include skuas and ospreys. A fulmar egg or chick makes a good meal for these birds of prey, if they can avoid the fulmar’s projectile vomits. The fulmar’s oily goo can cause feathers to become matted and lose their resistance to water, which endangers a bird by reducing its ability to fly and stay warm. Birds of many species have been killed by the odious upchuck of the foul fulmar.