How to Identify Northern Fulmar Feathers

What Northern Fulmar's Feathers Look Like

The Northern Fulmar is a stout, gull-like seabird that occurs in two distinct color morphs, and feather identification depends partly on which morph you're looking at. The light morph, more common in the Atlantic, has a pale gray back and upperwing with a clean white head, neck, and underparts, body feathers are soft pale gray above and pure white below, without the black wingtips seen on many gulls. The dark ("blue") morph, more prevalent in the high Arctic and North Pacific, is a fairly uniform sooty gray-brown all over, with only subtly paler tones on the head in some individuals. In both morphs, flight feathers are notably long, narrow, and stiff, 18-24 cm, reflecting the fulmar's tube-nosed, dynamic-soaring lifestyle spent almost entirely over open ocean; the stiffness and narrowness of these primaries, even compared to similarly sized gulls, is a useful textural clue. Tail feathers are short and squared, 10-13 cm, gray in both morphs. Overall the feathers feel notably dense and slightly oily/waterproof to the touch, an adaptation for a life spent on rough seas, and shafts are pale on light-morph body feathers, gray-brown on dark-morph and flight feathers throughout.

Step-by-Step: Is This Feather From a Northern Fulmar?

• Check for stiff, narrow flight feathers, notably rigid compared to a similarly sized gull, at 18-24 cm.
• Note the color morph. Clean white body feathers paired with pale gray upperwing feathers suggest the light morph; uniform sooty gray-brown throughout suggests the dark morph.
• Rule out black wingtips. Unlike many gulls, fulmars lack solid black feather tips on the outer primaries.
• Feel the texture. A slightly dense, faintly oily feel to the feather is consistent with this pelagic species' waterproofing.
• Measure the tail. Short and squared at 10-13 cm fits.
• Consider location: cold northern ocean waters, cliffs, or beached/storm-driven finds along northern coastlines support this ID.

Similar Species & How to Tell Them Apart

Herring Gull and other large gulls share a pale gray-and-white pattern but nearly always show black wingtip feathers, which light-morph fulmars lack, and gull flight feathers are typically less rigidly stiff than a fulmar's. Great Shearwater and other shearwaters have a similar stout seabird build and long, narrow flight feathers, but typically show a darker cap contrasting with a white collar, a pattern fulmars don't share. Sooty Shearwater, sometimes confused with the dark morph fulmar, is uniformly sooty brown but with silvery underwing linings visible on the flight feathers, a feature the fulmar's dark morph generally lacks or shows only faintly. Overall body shape and feather stiffness (fulmars being noticeably stouter and stiffer-winged) combined with the lack of black wingtips is the most useful combination for confirming fulmar over similar gulls and shearwaters.

Where & When You'll Find Them

Northern Fulmars breed colonially on sea cliffs and rocky islands across the North Atlantic and North Pacific, spending the rest of the year far out at sea and coming to land only to breed. Feathers are most likely to be found near breeding cliff colonies during the summer breeding season, or washed up on northern beaches after storms at any time of year, since fulmars are frequently found beach-cast following rough weather. Molt in adults occurs mainly after breeding, from late summer into autumn, while at sea, so freshly molted feathers washing ashore are most common in that period.