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Crested Auklet, Zapadni Cliffs, St. Paul Island, Alaska
Photograph by Alan And Elaine Wilson. Some rights reserved. |
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CRESTED AUKLET FACTS
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Description
The Crested Auklet is mainly black with a broad orange bill, and thin white stripe behind the eye. They eye is pale yellow white. During the breeding season the Crested Auklet has a prominent crest of bristle feathers on the top of the forehead. Males and females are similar. Juveniles are similar to adults with dark bill and no crest.
Size
18cm
Environment
rocky slopes, cliffs, boulder fields. Needs plenty of rock crevices for nesting colony. Only comes ashore to breed.
Food
krill, also copepods, pteropods, amphipods, fish larvae
Breeding
The Crested Auklet nests in huge colonies that can number over one million birds. They often breed in mixed colonies with Least Auklets. It lays a single egg in a crevice. Both male and female help to rear the young which fledges after about 33 days
Range
Inhabits islands and waters of Alaska. Nests in the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk including. In United States nests around the Alaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands
Classification
| Class: | Aves | | Order: | Charadriiformes | | Family: | Alcidae | | Genus: | Aethia | | Species: | cristatella | | Common Name: | Crested Auklet |
Relatives in same Genus
Parakeet Auklet (A. psittacula)
Least Auklet (A. pusilla)
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