Crested Auklets in the Atlantic Ocean

Iceland.—The first record of Crested Auklet in the Atlantic Ocean was a specimen collected northwest of Iceland in August 1912 (Hørring 1933). During a visit to the Universitetets Zoologiske Museum (ZM), Copenhagen, in 1984, SGS examined the mounted specimen (ZM 2.3.1934. C.N.I), which had been collected by shipmaster O. A. Christiansen between 12 and 20 August 1912, about 46 nautical miles (74 km; 66°48′N, 12°55′W) off the tip of Langanes Peninsula, Iceland (original documentation and photograph in Hørring 1933; also see Jourdain 1936; Fisher and Lockley 1954; Péttersson 1987). The bird was an adult in its definitive cycle (Pyle 2009; definitive alternate plumage of Bédard and Sealy [1984]) and was not molting; the remiges were abraded and faded (Fig. 1), typical of adults near or at the end of the breeding season (Jones 1993a; SGS, personal observations). The bill, including the ornamental rictal processes, was bright orange; white post-ocular plumes were present as well as 13 frontal plumes, less than means for adult males (26 plumes) and for adult females (23 plumes) during the breeding season; and the longest frontal plume was 40 mm, compared with means of 43 mm for adult males and 39 mm for adult females (Table 1 in Bédard and Sealy 1984). The depth of the bird's bill was less than its length, which suggests a female (see Figure 1 in Jones 1993b; compare E and F in Figure 551 of Pyle [2008: 779]). A female (UMZM 1166) taken at a colony on St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea on 2 July 1966, early in the chick-rearing period that year (Sealy 1975), was of comparable plumage (ASY), except its remiges were less worn.

Greenland.—During the same visit to the ZM in 1984, Jon Fjeldså showed SGS a specimen of Crested Auklet (ZM 64174, 14-9-1983-15) taken in Greenland several years earlier that was not reported in the literature until Boertmann (1994) included it in a list of new avifaunal records for Greenland. The specimen was among a small collection of rare birds taken in Greenland and donated to the ZM by J. Kreutzmann in 1972 (Boertmann 1994). Notes made on this specimen at the time of accession by the late Finn Salomonsen, translated by Kaj Kampp (in litt. to SGS, 23 October 1984), indicated these specimens were taken from western Greenland, probably near Nuuk (formerly Godthåb, 64° 11′N, 5°45′W), between 1968 and 1972, about 70 years after the specimen was taken near Iceland in 1912. The auklet was a female; its ovary was granular with minute follicles; and the bird weighed 265 g, within the normal range of breeding adults (Bédard 1969). The plumage was fresh and the remiges were unworn (Fig. 2); white post-ocular plumes and nine frontal plumes were present; and six frontal plumes were 42 mm long, within the range of adults breeding in the northern Bering Sea but longer than in subadults (Table 1 in Bédard and Sealy 1984: 464). The bill was black with a hint of pale orange on the mandible, typical of SY adults in late fall of their second year after hatching (Jones 1993a; Pyle 2009). This bird's ornamental plumes had developed during the prebasic molt, in the definitive cycle that is equated to twelve months of age or older (Pyle 2009). A male (UWBM 51224) taken at sea off Unimak Island, Aleutian Islands on 2 March 1992, was of comparable age (SY) and plumage, except with slightly more orange visible on the bill, as expected closer to the breeding season (Table 1).

Table 1.

Specimens of Crested Auklet and Parakeet Auklet collected in the North Pacific Ocean following the breeding season. Collection locations are: CAS — coastal California; UBC — St. Lawrence Island and Chukchi Sea near Barrow, Alaska; FMNH — Chukchi Sea near Barrow, Alaska; UMZM — St. Lawrence Island, Alaska; and UWBM — drift-net by-catch off Aleutian Islands, Alaska (acronyms for museum collections in the Methods).

Figure 1.

Crested Auklet (ZM 2.3.1934. C.N.1) taken northwest of Iceland between 12 and 20 August 1912. Note the worn primaries.

Figure 2.

Crested Auklet (ZM 64174, 14-9-1983-15) taken in southwest Greenland between 1968 and 1972.

Massachusetts.—An early record of Crested Auklet from Massachusetts has never been confirmed (e.g. Bent 1919; Salomonsen 1944; Fisher and Lockley 1954). During the “winter of 1884-‘85”, a bird killed at sea off Chatham (Forbush 1925: 35) was described by a fisherman to J. A. Allen “as being very much like the Little Auk or Dovekie [Alle alle] … in form and color, though a little larger, and having a tuft of narrow pointed feathers on the front of the head, curving upward and forward” (Allen 1885: 388). The frontal crest and small body size suggested a Crested Auklet but not its color and pattern. No other documentation was available and a specimen apparently was not preserved. Forbush (1925) acknowledged this record in his comprehensive treatise of the birds of Massachusetts but he considered it unacceptable and did not include it among the list of birds known to have occurred in Massachusetts.

Parakeet Auklet in the Atlantic Ocean

The sole occurrence of Parakeet Auklet in the Atlantic Ocean was documented with a specimen taken on Lake Vättern, Sweden in 1860 (Wahlgren 1867). Dalgleish (1880) erroneously referred to this bird as a Crested Auklet and included it in a list of North American birds that had been recorded in Europe. However, a painting depicting the bird, published in the Journal of the Swedish Sportsmen's Association, clearly revealed it as a Parakeet Auklet (Fig. 3). Ridgway (1919: 776) also erroneously designated the Crested Auklet as “accidental” in Sweden, based on Dalgleish's list (1880). This bird had landed on Lake Vättern (58°19′N, 14°31′W), a freshwater lake near Jönköping in south Sweden, and was captured alive in December 1860. The mounted specimen is housed in the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet (NRM 537036), Stockholm, Sweden where SGS and K. G. Kenneth Nyström examined it in 1984. The AHY bird was in basic plumage, apparendy faded or foxed 124 years after collection, with no evidence of molt. The bill lacked rictal plates and was yellow rather than dark reddish orange on the mandible and culmen, typical of breeding adults (Jones et al. 2001; Pyle 2008). Bill height was 12.0 mm, which suggests a female (Pyle 2008: 773). Post-ocular plumes were shorter than those of breeding adults (see Pyle 2008). An adult (AHY) female (FMNH 159110) found dead on a beach near Barrow, Alaska on 3 October 1932, was in a comparable basic plumage (Table 1).

Figure 3.

Original plate illustrating the Parakeet Auklet collected on Lake Vättern, Sweden in December 1860 (reproduced from a copy of Wahlgren [1867] at Uppsala University.)

Vagrant Crested Auklets along the west coast of North America

British Columbia.—Brooks and Swarth (1925: 127) listed the Crested Auklet as hypothetical in British Columbia based on sightings of “a number of very small auklets with recurved crests” made in May 1912 by C. de B. Green, W. S. Burton and W. Pike, along the north end of Vancouver Island (also see Munro and Cowan 1947). Citing an unpublished Brooks manuscript that may have been lost in a fire that destroyed Brooks's bird collection in 1921, observations of “sea-quail” in British Columbia waters by seal hunters familiar with Crested Auklets in the Bering Sea were reported. They did not mention a specimen of Crested Auklet (RBCM 11915) collected by J. M. Lindley, a seal hunter, allegedly in winter 1892–1893, offshore from Kyuquot (50°01′N, 127°22′W), northwest Vancouver Island (Pitman et al. 1983; Godfrey 1986). This specimen, sexed by SGS as a female on the basis of shape and measurements of the bill, may have been among the observations made by seal hunters mentioned in Brooks's missing manuscript. R. W. Campbell “discovered” this specimen among a series of Crested Auklets collected in Alaska that was housed in the RBCM, making it the first confirmed record for British Columbia and North America, south of Alaska (Campbell et al. 1990; photograph p. 478). The bird was at least three years old (ASY) and in alternate plumage (see Bédard and Sealy 1984), but only three full-length feathers remained among the frontal plumes and only remnants of the bill plates were present on the nares and base of the maxilla and mandible; the ornamental rictal processes were gone. Remiges were worn and slightly faded, but not molting, typical of individuals during the chick-rearing period (Bédard and Sealy 1984); incubation patches were not discernible. The specimen was likely taken in late summer, not “winter”, as the label indicated. A specimen (FMNH 159111) similar in plumage and bill characteristics was taken along the coast at Barrow, Alaska, near the northern limit of occurrence, on 17 July 1928. Other specimens (FMNH 159113, 159114, 159115) taken at Barrow between 3 and 7 October 1927, however, were molting (Table 1).

Another Crested Auklet was observed for more than one month from 5 September 2003 along the coast of southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, about 25 km west of Victoria (48°19′N, 123°30′W) (Cecile 2004). This bird was in at least its third summer (ASY), confirmed from photographs (Cecile 2004:173; Anonymous 2004: 28; additional photographs supplied to SGS by photographer J. Jantunen). The bird's extensively worn remiges and several missing secondaries were evident, frontal plumes had molted, and the bill showed no visible plates or ornamental rictal processes.

Washington.—A dead Crested Auklet was salvaged on a road on 29 June 1937, about 160 km inland near Vance (Nickelsen 1942). The mounted, unsexed specimen was given to Nickelsen by W. Little, Game Protector in the area. Nickelsen (1942: 82) described the “wing feathers [as] completely frayed and worn, indicating long flight, [but] otherwise the bird was in good condition.” Jewett et al. (1953) described the plumage as some-what faded and the feathers “stringy”. I. N. Gabrielson and S. G. Jewett, ornithologists familiar with this species based on visits to colonies in Alaska, confirmed the identity of the specimen in 1941, but Jewett et al. (1953: 675) listed Crested Auklet as hypothetical for Washington state, citing “an element of doubt as to the origin of this specimen.” The late spring date and condition of the flight feathers of this bird are consistent with some other vagrant Crested Auklets recorded south of the normal non-breeding range in the Pacific Ocean.

California.—An adult male Crested Auklet (CAS 70170), weak and exhausted, was found on a beach 6 km north of Bolinas, California (37°56′N, 122°46′W) on 17 July 1979, approximately 4,200 km southeast of the nearest colony in the eastern Aleutian Islands; it was dead and salvaged the next day (Weyman 1980). Incubation patches were almost completely refeathered and feathers of the lores to rump were new, as well as some greater secondary coverts; however, rectrices and remiges were excessively worn and faded but not yet being replaced, suggesting a failed breeder (Bédard and Sealy 1984). Wear of the remiges was more extreme than normal for breeders even late in the breeding season (SGS, personal observations). The bird's mandible and maxilla showed some orange coloration, but the ornamental rictal processes were gone; there were only eight, short frontal plumes (three new ones were developing), less than the mean (26 plumes) for breeding males (Bédard and Sealy 1984). This individual weighed 163 g, almost 70 g less than the minimum recorded during the breeding season (Bédard 1969; Piatt et al. 1990), and considerably below weights of emaciated individuals recorded during a die-off during the egg-laying period in the northern Bering Sea in July 1966. During this die-off, two adult females (that had recently laid eggs) weighed 195 g and 247 g (Bédard 1969), and an adult male weighed 228 g (SGS, unpublished data). These weights were extremely low but body mass of Crested Auklets varies widely, within and among sites from year to year, probably reflecting fluctuations in prey availability and quality (Bédard 1969; Piatt and Springer 2003). Only one other record has been accepted for California: an ASY female photographed off Bodega Head on 24 June 1995 (Hamilton et al. 2007: 217).

Baja California.—The most southerly record of a Crested Auklet in the eastern Pacific Ocean and only Mexican record was an ASY adult in breeding plumage seen clearly by several observers at sea on 7 July 1980, about 15 km ESE of Cedros Island (27°59′N, 115°00′W), off central west Baja California (Luther et al. 1983; Pitman et al. 1983). Pitman et al. 's (1983: 47) detailed description left little doubt that the bird was an adult Crested Auklet: “The prominent bill was bright orange (or reddish yellow), … and had a somewhat rounded appearance when viewed from the side,” which suggested a male (see Jones 1993b: 528).

Parakeet Auklet Movements in the Pacific Ocean

Parakeet Auklets occur farther south in pelagic waters of the North Pacific Ocean during the non-breeding season than Crested Auklets and in some years individuals move beyond what may be considered the Parakeet Auklet's normal non-breeding range (Gaston and Jones 1998), with some individuals reaching the Hawaiian Islands (Clapp 1986). Since the first records in California in 1895 (Grinnell and Miller 1944) and in Washington in 1898–1899 (Dawson 1908; Dawson and Bowles 1909), beachcast carcasses of Parakeet Auklets have regularly been salvaged from Washington to California during the 20th century. Recently, they have been recorded regularly in winter offshore of California and occasionally during the rest of the year (Hamilton et al. 2007). Occurrence along the west coast probably did not reflect vagrancy but rather were responses to variable feeding conditions that may attract individuals inshore, or result in die-offs (Beck 1910; Clapp 1986). After the earliest British Columbia records in 1892–1893 and 1912 (see above), the next confirmed record was in 1971 (Campbell and Shepard 1973) and in 1989 15 carcasses were salvaged on southwest Vancouver Island after the Nestucca oil spill that may have drifted north from Washington (Rodway et al. 1989; Campbell et al. 1990). Since the late 1980s, Parakeet Auklets have been observed occasionally in British Columbia (CLO and NAS 2011) and they may have been overlooked previously in offshore waters. Most individuals apparently move considerable distances south of the colonies in the Bering Sea during winter and then apparently eastward before reaching the west coast, primarily between California and Washington and more occasionally in British Columbia. This variable pattern of distribution during the non-breeding season might be expected to promote long-distance vagrancy in the Parakeet Auklet, but this is not the case. No vagrant records are known south of California or Hawaii.

Concluding Remarks

Long-distance vagrancy has been recorded so infrequently in Crested and Parakeet auklets that our explanations of factors promoting it and routes travelled from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean must be considered tentative. Better identification of patterns of vagrancy will result from documentation of additional records of vagrant auklets and other seabirds, collation of published and often hidden unpublished historical records, and better understanding of weather patterns. Stable isotope analysis, genetics, and satellite tracking also hold promise to assist identification of source localities or populations of some vagrants (Jouventin and Weimerskirch 1990; Fox et al. 2007; Pyle 2009; Birt et al. 2011; Landers et al. 2011).