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Fulmar Flypast, Mull, Scotland

I've photographed fulmars in Ireland before but on a recent puffin-watching expedition to Scotland I had the chance, briefly to see another.

Young fulmars spend five years fully at sea, coming back to land to choose a colony after that but even then they won't breed for another few years. They can live for over forty years.

In this image you can see the tube-nose from which the tubenose family get their name, the birds possess a gland which helps to process, store then eject saline through the tube - salty water collected when diving for fish in the north Atlantic.

Fulmar comes from Norse, it means foul gull and relates to the stinking stomach oil that the bird regurgitates in order to deter threats. It matts the feathers of other birds and it covers other animals (humans too) with the stinky non-soluble fluid that can destroy clothes.

You've been warned - keep your distance! Enjoy these majestic fliers from afar.

Northern Fulmar doing the classic clifftop hover where the sea wind hits the cliffs

Northern Fulmar after the head of a rock fish that was released by a fishing vessel. 

Entering the waters of Northeast Greenland National Park

Taken August 2022

Approaching the remote volcanic island of Jan Mayen

Taken August 2022

Northern Fulmar

Freedom is a Northern Fulmar soaring high above the sea along the Irish coastline at the Cliffs of Moher.

Fulmars

Fulmars are monogamous and return to the same breeding site each year. They live up to 40 years

Northern bottlenose whale Hyperoodon ampullatus

With northern fulmar Fulmarus glacialis

Observed by rouj, CC BY-NC

Nesting birds in the ice off of Lilliehöökbreen, Svalbard

Taken August 2022

A Northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) nests in the Farne Islands, Northumberland, UK

by Barbara Evans

Fulmar

Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) - photo by Wildlife Fred25