Common Murre (Uria aalge) [XC372633]
by david m from Scarborough District (near Bempton), East Riding of Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom (call, flight call)
Common Murre (Uria aalge) [XC487626]
by Veljo Runnel from Onverdarnes, Iceland (begging call, call)
Nest
None. Eggs laid in gravelly crevice or on a ledge.
Eggs (Guide)
1; roughened, very variable, from any shade of blue-green, brown, yellow, buff or white, some heavily blotched and spotted with various shades of yellow, brow and black, some lightly spotted, streaked, scrawled or scribbled with similar colors, not infrequently with no or next to no markings at all; pyriform. Incubation: 27 - 38 days.
Subspecies
Birds of Faeroes sometimes separated as subspecies spiloptera.
Proposed subspecies intermedia, for populations of small islands in southern Baltic, probably invalid, as claimed differences probably reflect individual variation.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
aalge (Pontoppidan, 1763) - Eastern North America, Greenland and Iceland, through Faeroes and Scotland to southern Norway and Baltic Sea.
albionis Witherby, 1923 - Ireland and southern Britain through Brittany to western Iberia; Helgoland.
hyperborea Salomonsen, 1932 - Svalbard through northern Norway and Murmansk to Novaya Zemlya.
inornata Salomonsen, 1932 - Eastern Korea and Japan (northern Hokkaido) north through Sakhalin to Kamchatka, whence east through Bering Sea, Aleutians and western Alaska to north-western British Columbia.
californica (Bryant, H, 1861) - Northern Washington south to California.
The Reader's Digest Book of British Birds 1980, 3rd Edition, Drive Publications Ltd ISBN 0 340 25308 8
Birds in Colour Campbell, B., 1960, Penguin Books Ltd
The Pocket Guide to Nest and Eggs Fitter, R.S.R., 1954, Collins
RSPB Handbook of British Birds Holden, P., Cleeves, T., 2002, A & C Black ISBN 0 7136 5713 8
Birds of Britain and Europe Sterry, P., et al., 2001, AA Publishing ISBN 0 7495 3068 5
The Popular Handbook of British Birds Hollom, P.A.D., 1973, H.F. & G. Witherby Ltd ISBN 0 85493 002 7
BirdLife International Species Factsheet