From Pacific to Prairie and Pole to Pole

Two subspecies of Xantus’s Murrelets are currently recognized; scrippsi and hypoleucus. These birds look different, make different calls, breed in different places, and recently a genetic test was done to prove they are genetically diverse. Whoever decided they were the same species was a little confused.

Dr. K and a Scrippsi murrelet in April. Note the amount of black on its face.

The vast majority of the murrelets we saw were scrippsi– they nest on the Channel Islands and usually stay around California throughout the year. Hypoleucus, on the other hand, is much rarer in SoCal, as they nest on the Guadalupe Islands off of Baja. They have a much whiter face and are significantly larger than the scrippsi. It would be a treat to see a hypoleucus! Daryl and Laurie caught just one hypoleucus before we arrived, but we didn’t even see ONE during our spotlighting excursionson SBI. Dr. K had a list of three things she wanted to band: ashy storm petrel (check!), cassin’s auklet (check!) and a hypoleucus murrelet. Alas, we turned back toward Santa Barbara Harbor without one.

Netting in action! Augie in front with the net, Christie with the spotlight, and Daryl is in back steering the skiff.

After letting Dr. K get back to her academic commitments, Augie and I went with Harry and Daryl to Anacapa Island (more on this later!) to look for murrelet and auklet nests, and also do one more night of captures. There weren’t as many murrelets around Anacapa, but after a slow start, we started to find more and more. All of a sudden, after we had motored down all of East Anacapa Island, Daryl shouted “Hypoleucus!”. Turns out, it wasn’t just one, but a PAIR of these rare birds right near our boat. Augie, with his master netting skills, managed to catch both birds!! Success! Now, our murrelet education is complete. And Dr. K is very jealous.

Augie and I with the pair of Hypoleucus murrelets. What a great catch! These birds were far away from their nesting sites in Mexico

However, Dr. Karnovsky and our other lab-mate Charlotte left yesterday for Montana. Hopefully we’ll be getting updates from them soon! In the meantime, Augie and I are preparing for a short trip up to PRBO, in Petaluma, CA. We’ll have missed Eleanor by just a few days!