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The crested auklet (Aethia cristatella) is a small seabird of the family Alcidae, distributed throughout the northern Pacific and the Bering Sea. The species feeds by diving in deep waters, eating krill and a variety of small marine animals. It nests in dense colonies of up to 1 million individuals in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk.
Two nests found in Washington were located only 150 feet (46 m) apart. Not all mature adults nest every year. [13] The clutch is a single egg. The nestlings fledge in 28 days. The young remain in the nest longer than other alcids and molt into their juvenile plumage before leaving the nest. [12] Fledglings fly directly from the nest to the ...
Auks are pelagic birds, spending the majority of their adult lives on the open sea and going ashore only for breeding, although some species, such as the common guillemot, spend a great part of the year defending their nesting spot from others. Auks are monogamous, and tend to form lifelong pairs.
In most seabird colonies several different species will nest on the same colony, often exhibiting some niche separation. Seabirds can nest in trees (if any are available), on the ground (with or without nests), on cliffs, in burrows under the ground and in rocky crevices. Colony size is a major aspect of the social environment of colonial birds.
Seabird eggs have also long been an important source of food for sailors undertaking long sea voyages, as well as being taken when settlements grow in areas near a colony. Eggers from San Francisco took almost half a million eggs a year from the Farallon Islands in the mid-19th century, a period in the islands' history from which the seabird ...
Frigatebirds are referred to as kleptoparasites as they occasionally rob other seabirds for food, and are known to snatch seabird chicks from the nest. Seasonally monogamous, frigatebirds nest colonially. A rough nest is constructed in low trees or on the ground on remote islands. A single egg is laid each breeding season.
The masked booby (Sula dactylatra), also called the masked gannet or the blue-faced booby, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae.First described by the French naturalist René-Primevère Lesson in 1831, the masked booby is one of six species of booby in the genus Sula.
The great frigatebird (Fregata minor) is a large seabird in the frigatebird family.There are major nesting populations in the tropical Pacific Ocean, such as Hawaii and the Galápagos Islands; in the Indian Ocean, colonies can be found in the Seychelles (on Aldabra and Aride Islands) and Mauritius, and there is a tiny population in the South Atlantic, mostly on and around St. Helena and ...