"Skua dinner"
Jane Wasley, Honorary Fellow

The Subantarctic Skua regurgitates indigestible remains of food in the form of a pellet.  This image, showing close-up detail of a pellet found near a penguin colony on Macquarie Island, gives insight into Skua diet.  Subantarctic skuas have a very broad diet which varies with season and locality; they scavenge and predate upon other seabirds and their young, eggs, fish, molluscs, crustaceans and small mammals.  The Subantarctic Skua is common on Macquarie Island for nine months of the year but disperse out to sea over the early winter period.