Arctic poppy - igutamut niqit Even in the most barren areas you can find the tall hairy stems and large yellow flowers of the Arctic poppy. These circumpolar and colonial species are pelagic seabirds outside the breeding season. They return to their nesting cliffs every spring, having spent the rest of the year at sea, in the offshore and coastal waters of the North Atlantic. Murres are related to puffins and to the now extinct great auk. They can dive to depths beyond 100 m in search of prey.
Kittiwakes are small gulls which forage over marine waters in search of small surface organisms.
Murre populations have fluctuated considerably in the last decades. Up to one million murres used to summer at Cape Hay alone. Over-hunting on winter grounds, death in fishing nets and marine pollution have taken a heavy toll. Murres and kittiwakes are respectively called akpa and nauluktuapik by the Inuit. The greater snow goose is slightly larger but identical to the lesser snow goose.