sea pigeons

Noun

sea pigeon (plural sea pigeons)

1. The black guillemot (Cepphus grylle).
   • At length my son asked for the telescope, and on returning it carelessly remarked, "There are a couple of black guillemots." Macleod was alive in a moment—"That's the sea-pigeon."1880, John Colquhoun, The Moor and the Loch
2. The pigeon guillemot (Cepphus columba).
   • The pigeon guillemot, or sea pigeon, comes next. Its home is to be found close to the water's edge, in the little coves and clefts of the rocks, and it delights to sit on a rock where it is almost reached by every return of the swell.1892 September, Charles S. Greene, “Los Farallones De Los Frayles”, in Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, volume 20, number 21, page 235
3. A common guillemot (Uria aalge).
   • Believing that low aquatic birds would more readily yield these evidences, a visit was made to Grand Menan, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, and at that place were obtained the embryos of the razorbill auk, eider duck, sea pigeon, herring gull and petrel.1880, Edward S. Morse, “On the Identity of the Ascending Process of the Astragalus in Birds with the Intermedium”, in Anniversary Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, page 5
4. The Mandt's guillemot (Cepphus mandtii).
   • MANDT's GUILLEMOT (C. mandtii) is a northern variety of the Sea Pigeon, differing from grylle in lacking the black bar on the wing-patch, and having a somewhat stouter bill.1896, Thomas Nuttall, Montague Chamberlain, A Popular Handbook of the Ornithology of Eastern North America
5. The cormorant.
   • One of the oddest creatures in the sea is the sea pigeon, a long black shape as thick as a small cable, the head of which is like a crown of very soft feathers, and is very often seen in shallow muddy stretches near the shore.1917, Stephen Haweis, The Book about the Sea Gardens of Nassau, Bahamas, page 28
6. Bonaparte's gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia).
   • Bonaparte's Gull. Little bass gull; sea pigeon (from its general figure and small size among gulls).1956, The Kingbird - Volumes 6-10, page 9

See all 7 meanings of sea pigeon