The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
A calm warm summer day with bathing seabirds was a nice surprise for us out boating last week. Usually this spot on the Strait of Juan de Fuca has rough water, with swells rolling directly in from the Pacific Ocean...choppy water offshore and waves breaking on rocks, but this day the water was nearly flat.
Perhaps the birds who live way out here found it pleasant too. Many were bathing and preening their vivid summer breeding plumage, so different from their plain winter garb.
These are alcids, deepwater fish-hunters who never come in to beaches. They nest on remote rocky islands. Alcids look superficially like ducks, but they are more like penguins (those "svelte buoyant waterfowl"): similar compact well-insulated bodies and incredible agility and grace underwater. Like penguins they swim with their wings. But unlike them, the alcids can fly! Such short wings are no good for gliding but they can speed by just above the surface almost faster than you can track.
Since they all feed on fish, they'd be in competition if they didn't specialize. Take a look at their bills - note how different they are.
Rhinoceros Auklets:
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
Pigeon Guillemot:
Common Murre:
And the most spectacular sighting this day: PUFFINS!
Tufted Puffins are rare and becoming more so. Their nearest nesting spot, from what I understand, is 10 miles away. When I reported the seven puffins I saw to eBird, they wanted confirmation, so unexpected is it to see this species. They are only in these inland water during the summer breeding season, and then they return to the open ocean.
Many alcids' numbers are declining dramatically, hit by several factors at once...loss of suitable safe nesting habitat as people develop shorelines...a precipitous decline in forage fish like herring due to pollution and overfishing...entanglement and drowning in ghost gill nets...changes the ocean chemistry and temperature from sudden climate change, affecting fish populations.
It was a real gift to see these "northern penguins" at their ease this day, especially the flamboyant glorious puffins. We almost didn't go out that day. It's a reminder how even though you can never count on seeing wildlife - since they are wild - but if you don't go out, you surely won't.
Summer nature sightings in your part of the world? Add your report to the Bucket in the comments.
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