A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1367 entries
fulmar
The fulmar is a stiff-winged gray and white seabird of northern oceans that looks like a gull and is not one. It is a tubenose, related to albatrosses and petrels, with paired tubes along the top of the bill that drain excess salt. It flies on locked wings in long banking arcs close to the water, breeds on cliff ledges, and can live over forty years.
Etymology
The name is Old Norse and it is blunt: foul gull. The bird earned it. Fulmars defend themselves and their nests by projectile-vomiting a stomach oil that is difficult to remove and that can mat the feathers of a bird that gets hit, and the smell stays on clothing for a long time. English took the name from Norse by way of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles, where the bird was hunted for centuries.