The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Dovekie

(Alle alle also little auk, a bird of the family Alcidae of the order Charadriiformes. It measures approximately 25 cm long and weighs about 150 g. The coloration is black above and white below.

The dovekie is distributed in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean and the western part of the Arctic Ocean and spends most of the year in the ocean. It nests in large colonies along rock coasts in the arctic. In the USSR it nests in Novaia Zemlia, Franz Josef Land, and Severnaia Zemlia. The eggs (usually one, some-times two) are deposited directly on the ground beneath rocks. The bird feeds on small marine invertebrates. It is of local commercial importance for its meat.

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References in periodicals archive

The position of the colony, on a rocky plateau above high cliffs on a small offshore island, is consistent with Atlantic Puffins (Bennike et al., 2008) or with Dovekies, which usually nest in crevices on talus slopes up to 400 m above sea level and are currently the most common colony-nesting seabird in the region (Montevecchi and Stenhouse, 2002).

Seabird transfer of nutrients and trace elements from the North Water polynya to land during the mid-Holocene warm period, Carey Islands, Northwest Greenland

This observation apparently constitutes the 1st record of a Dovekie in British Columbia (for example, Campbell and others 1990).

First record of Dovekie in British Columbia

In this study, we describe four records of colour aberrations in the most abundant alcid in the Palaearctic (Stempniewicz, 2001)--the dovekie (Alle alle).

Not always black and white: colour aberrations in the dovekie

Locally on Svalbard, the dovekie (Alle alle) is an important component of the glaucous gull diet (Stempniewicz, 1995).

Glaucous gull predation on dovekies: three new hunting methods

Birds described as dovekies (Alle alle) by Greely must have been black guillemots (Cepphus grylle), since the reported amount of meat from an individual exceeded 1 pound (0.4 kg).

Chances for Arctic survival: Greely's expedition revisited

Despite the absence of dovekie breeding records in the northern Bering Sea (Day et al., 1988), we suspect that a small population of Pacific dovekies has formed, with its wintering area somewhere near the Kuril Islands.

Seabirds of the Chukotka Peninsula, Russia

Neither northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) nor dovekies (Alle alle) were significantly associated with the presence of cetaceans.

Hydrographic features, cetaceans and the foraging of thick-billed murres and other marine birds in the Northwestern Barents Sea

Kittiwake B B Ross's Gull - - Sabine's Gull - + Ivory Gull + - Arctic Tern + B Dovekie + + Thick-billed Murre B B Black Guillemot + + Atlantic Puffin - - Snowy Owl B + Horned Lark + B Tree Swallow - - Barn Swallow - - Common Raven + + Northern Wheatear - - American Pipit + B Yellow Warbler - - Northern

Birds of Bylot Island and adjacent Baffin Island, Northwest Territories, Canada, 1979 to 1997

In winter, they sometimes fly out on to the ice floes to eat puffins, dovekies, razorbills and murres -- and even scavenge on polar bear seal kills.

Number of owls are on the rise

Leigh Smith and his men then settled down for a relatively comfortable winter, the provisions they had salvaged being augmented by the meat of 34 bears and 24 walrus, plus vast numbers of murres and dovekies before they disappeared before the winter and after they returned in the spring.

SHIPWRECK AT CAPE FLORA: THE EXPEDITIONS OF BENJAMIN LEIGH SMITH, ENGLAND'S FORGOTTEN ARCTIC EXPLORER

I'm betting those observers hardy enough to buffet the cold and wind are now seeing through their scopes and binoculars huge numbers of gannets, along with a few penguin-like puffins, murres, razorbills, dovekies and guillemots.

Hunters now out of stands and following snow tracks

Field and laboratory metabolism and thermoregulation in dovekies (Alle alle).

Effect of wind on field metabolic rates of breeding Northern Fulmars