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Home , Aethia, Crested auklet

NOTES

LEAST AUKLET IN

STEPHEN F. BAILEY, Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy, California Academy of Sciences,Golden Gate Park, San Francisco,California 94118

Duringthe afternoonof 15 June 1981 a distressedLeast Auklet (Aethiapusilia) was found on Thornton State Beachin Daly City, San Mateo County, California,the first location southeastof Kodiak, , where the has been recorded. A park rangerrescued the and deliveredit to the PeninsulaHumane Societyin San Mateo. Despitecare the aukletdied overnight.On 18 June I confirmedthe identifica- tion and securedthe specimenfor the Museumof VertebrateZoology (MVZ), Univer- sity of California,Berkeley. Figure 1 is a ventralphotograph of the aukletas frozen, with the head turned in pro- file and the feet folded forward. Both plumageand soft partswere typicalof breeding adults.The bird was not molting.Its measurementswere total length 160 ram, extent 338 turn, wing chord 94 ram, tail 26 turn, tarsus18.7 ram, culmen9.4 rnm, lengthof bill knob 2.8 rnrn, height of bill knob 2.6 mm, and bill depth throughknob 7.8 rnrn. Robert M. Zink prepared the specimen as a study skin and partial skeleton, MVZ168469. It was a male with testes4 x 2 ram. After freezingit weighed55.5 g, much lighterthan the publishedaverages, 86.3 g (Bedard 1969) and 96 g (Hughes 1970). At preparationemaciation and lack of fat were noted, but otherwisethere were no apparentinternal or externalinjuries, diseases, or organ abnormalities.The only visibleparasites were a few mallophaga,which were collected.Although the birdlikely starved, its temperature of 42.5øC on arrival at the Humane Society (fide Sandi Stadler) suggeststhat diseaseor heat stressmay have been involved. The Least Auklet nestsin vast colonieson islandsin the BeringSea and the Aleu- tians. The southeasternmostreported colonies are in the Shurnagin and Semidi Islands(American Ornithologists' Union 1983), but Sowl (1979) statedthat there was no evidencethat Least Auklets nest in the westernGulf of Alaska, and he doubted all previousreports of nestingeast of the Aleutians.Apparently most individuals winter near their nestingcolonies, but some winter off northwestPacific coasts southwest as far as northern Japan (AmericanOrnithologists' Union 1983). In the easternPacific, conversely,the only previousrecord east or south of the breedingislands is W. J. Fisher's collection of five at Kodiak during January 1882 (Friedmann 1935, Gabrielson and Lincoln 1959). Kessel and Gibson (1978) indicated no new distribu- tional records,and Roberson(1980) found none for BritishColumbia, Washington, Oregon, or California.The Californiarecord listedby the AmericanOrnithologists' Union (1983) is the one I detail here. No storms affected the California coast around the time of the auklet's arrival. Rather, the bird appeared in the midst of a long period of record hot, clear, calm weather. Possiblyheat stresscontributed to the bird'sdeath. This LeastAuklet could not have been an escapeefrom captivity.The specieshas been kept only by Sea World of San Diego, whichfound it difficultto maintain(W. T. Everettpers. comm.). The primarieswere faded on their exposededges and surfaces, but there was no unusualwear as expectedin captives.There may be somepossibility the bird was transportedinadvertently by a ship, as Least Auklets sometimescome aboard at sea (G. V. Byrd pers. comm.), but most seabirdsthat seem to have been transportedby shipsappear at naval basesor insideports, not on ocean beaches. Thornton State Beach receivesdirect PacificOcean surf, which regularlydeposits dead and dying seabirdsthere; it is a likely site for an unaided waif to beach itself. As mostfar northernspecies are thoughtof as movingsouth in the winter, both the summer arrival and the alternate plumage might seem unlikely for the first Least Auklet to reach Californiaunaided. However, thesefit the patternrecently established 38 Western 20:38-40, 1989 NOTES

by two other alcids. The Horned (Fraterculacorniculata) now reachesCalifornia mostly during early summer, often in alternateplumage (Hoffman et al. 1975, Roberson1980). A Horned Puffinfound 29 July 1975 on Ocean Beach, San Francisco(CAS68979 in the CaliforniaAcademy of Sciences)was only 4 km north of the Least Auklet's landfall. Furthermore, on 16 July 1979 a ( cristatella)was found dying on a beach 33 km northwestof Thornton State Beach (Weyman 1980). and on 7 July 1980 another was found near CedrosIsland, off Baja California, Mexico (Pitman et al. 1983). Thus I concludethat thisLeast Auklet was a vagrant. This record was acceptedby the CaliforniaBird RecordsCommitee (Binford 1983). I thank RobertGraf for alertingme to the LeastAuklet's occurrence and disposition and Sandi Stadlerfor providingadditional information on the bird'sarrival and death at the PeninsulaHumane Society.Special thanks go to RobertM. Zink for preparing and dissectingthe specimenand for helpfulsuggestions on an earlierdraft of thisnote. G. Vernon Byrd and Ned K. Johnsonalso improved the manuscript.

LITERATURE CITED

American Ornithologists'Union. 1983. Check-listof North American Birds, 6th ed. AmericanOrnithologists' Union. [Washington,D.C.]. Bedard, J. 1969. Adaptive radiation in the alcids. Ibis 111:189-198. Binford, L. C. 1983. Sixth report of the CaliforniaBird RecordsCommittee. W. Birds 14:127-145. Friedmann.H. 1935. The birdsof KodiakIsland, Alaska. Bull. ChicagoAcad. Sci. 5:13-54.

Figure 1. Least Auklet pickedup at Daly City, San Mateo Co.. California. Photo by Stephen F. Bailey

39 NOTES

Gabrielson, I. N., and Lincoln, F. C. 1959. The Birds of Alaska. Stackpole, Har- risburg, PA. Hoffman, W., Elliott, W. P., and Scott, J. M. 1975. The occurrenceand statusof the Horned Puffin in the western United States. W. Birds 6:87-94. Hughes, M. R. 1970. Relative kidney size in nonpasserinebirds with functionalsalt glands. Condor 72:164-168. Kessel, B., and Gibson, D. D. 1978. Status and distribution of Alaska birds. Studies Avian Biol. 1. Pitman, R., Newcomer, M., Butler, J., Cotton, J., and Friedrichsen,G. 1983. A Crested Auklet from Baja California. W. Birds 14:47-48. Roberson, Do 1980. Rare Birds of the West Coast. Woodcock Publ., PacificGrove, CA. Sowl, L. W. 1979. The historicalstatus of nestingseabirds of the northernand western Gulf of Alaska, in Conservation of Marine Birds of Northern (j. C. Bartonek and D. N. Nettleship, eds.), U.S. & Wildlife Service, Wildlife Research Rep. 11. Weyman, F. O. 1980. Crested Auklet found in California. Condor 82:472. Accepted 9 April 1989

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