Tufted Puffin
Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata )
The Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata ) is a medium sized bird of the family of the Auks. It occurs exclusively in the North Pacific. There are no recognized subspecies.
Appearance
The Tufted Puffin reaches a body length of 40 inches and weighs about 780 grams. It is thus a large powerfully built Auk. The beak is large, narrow and very high. The plumage is dark apart from the white face and the yellow feathers on the head. His flight looks rather awkward, due to the relatively small wing he is not very agile in the air and needs in the country sloping land and on the sea a long start-up before it can fly up. On land it moves with a rolling gait. Resting birds have an erect posture.
In breeding plumage, the plumage on the body top is black brown, the underside is dark brown. The face is white. On the back there are brilliant yellow feathers, which can reach a length of seven inches. The under wing-coverts are gray-brown. The iris is gray-white with a very thin featherless red eye ring. Two-thirds of the beak are red, during the breeding season he wears on the beak base a large olive-green to yellowish horn plate. There are three vertical grooves at the tip of the beak. The feet and legs are red to orange-red. Immature birds at an age of two years are similar to the breeding birds already very much in them but the beak is smaller and paler. You only have two beak notches in the rule. The elongated face feathers are shorter and more whitish than yellow gold.
The simplicity of the dress Tufted Puffin is dark brown on the body top completely black and brown on the underparts. It can be found only a few paler spots on the belly and a gray- brown spot behind the eye. The extended mind springs are absent, as the olive-green to yellowish horn plate on the beak. The beak is at the top and goes to the matte red beak base down into a brown. Young birds resemble the adult birds in their simplicity dress. For them but the throat and upper breast are gray-brown. The lower breast and belly is white with brown spots. The iris is brown -gray, the bare skin around the eyes is black. The beak is brown, triangular and significantly smaller than in adult birds.
Distribution area
The Tufted Puffin is a bird of the boreal and Arctic waters of the North Pacific. Its range extends from Big Sur on the California coast to Hokkaidō. Numerous he comes but only in the region of British Columbia prior to the Sea of Okhotsk. Individual Tufted Lunde are occasionally observed in the Chukchi Sea and penetrate to Wrangel Island before. Vagrants are occasionally seen in the Beaufort Sea.
Breeding colonies are found especially numerous on islands off the Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands and the Kuril Islands and the Sea of Okhotsk. Less numerous, there are breeding colonies in the Bering Sea and border populations also nest on islands in the Chukchi and Wrangel Island. The main distribution area are the eastern Aleutian Islands and in particular those islands, which lie at the transitions between the Bering Sea and the Pacific. Nine of the 58 islands with a breeding population of more than 10,000 breeding Tufted Lunden lie in the area between Iceland Akutan and Unalaska nine and nine between Unimak and Akutan Iceland Iceland. The southernmost breeding colonies found on Hokkaido on the Asiatic coast.
The wintering areas of Tufted Lunde are not precisely known. Hold generally to the open sea. Exceptions are some Tufted Lunde, who remain in the region of their breeding colonies unless they are forcing the icing, continue to dodge to the south. During the winter, Tufted Lunde be observed among other off the coast of California, in the north of the Japanese sea and from the north of Honshu and to the east coast of Japan. Off the coast of British Columbia on the other hand tufted Lunde are rarely seen in the winter months.
Food
Tufted Lunde look for food all year far from the coast. They also often keep it away from the continental shelves. Where the Tufted Puffin with the horn Lund shares the breeding colonies, looking Tufted Lunde further from the breeding colony for food.
Young birds are fed by the parents birds almost exclusively on fish. The food, the adult birds, at least partially, if not largely of zooplankton. They also occasionally eat crustaceans and other small marine animals.
Reproduction
Tufted Lunde are like most seabirds colony breeders. You return to their breeding colonies from March to May. On the Farallon Islands the first Tufted Lunde are usually observed between the 12th and 6th April. On the Commander Islands they arrive towards the end of April and on the Chukotka between late May and early June.
Tufted Lunde usually breed on islands with steep grassy slopes and soils that are suitable for digging burrows. They also make use of vegetated screes and breed exceptionally well on cliffs. On islands where foxes are also present, they breed only in inaccessible cliffs. In some coastal areas of Alaska Gelbschupflunde dig their burrows in the sand dunes, which are not higher than two meters. Contrast, can be found on the bars Islands breeding caves more than 600 meters above sea level. On the Farallon Islands Tufted Lunde Nashornalke and Taubenteisten occasionally displace from their nests. The Nistdichte is on Talan Island in the Sea of Okhotsk between 0.3 to 0.9 cavities per square meter.
The nest is usually located in burrows, sometimes in rock crevices or in burrows under rocks. Burrows dug by the Tufted Lunden with beak and feet. The entrance of a typical nesting hole has a diameter of 15 centimeters and can be up to two meters long. Oviposition takes place between late April and late May. The nest consists of only one egg. The egg is white, occasionally the eggs have pale brown or bluish spots or doodling. The egg is incubated by both parents birds. The incubation period is 45 days on average.
The young birds are fed by the parents birds on average 3.5 times per day. Most parents carry the birds feed approach in the early morning hours. Sometimes young birds should be fed in the late afternoon hours. The amount of food zoom bring the parents birds per day varies, 14 to 22 grams. In some breeding colonies occurs Kleptoparasitismus through Bering seagulls.
The growth of young birds depends on the amount of food that can bring along the parent birds. Immediately after hatching They weigh an average of 69.4 grams and reach their maximum weight at the age of 35. The weight of the young birds of the Tufted Lunde at the time of fledging varies considerably. In the Gulf of Alaska, the young birds fly from weighing 274-609 grams.
Stock
In the area between Akutan and Unimak Iceland Iceland live 800000-1000000 breeding birds. There is on Egg Iceland with 163,000 breeding birds and the largest colony of this kind to the larger colonies counts on Forrester Iceland off the southeastern coast of Alaska ( 70,000 breeding birds ) on Castle Rock the Shumagin Islands ( 80,000 breeding birds ), Amagat Iceland ( 100,000 breeding birds ) before the Alaska Peninsula and on Amatuli Iceland in the Gulf of Alaska ( 93,000 breeding birds ). The only significant colony off the coast of British Columbia is located on Triangle Iceland ( 50,000 breeding birds ). Otherwise, located south of Alaska no breeding colonies with more than 10,000 breeding pairs. Small colonies are located off the coast of Washington and Oregon. Gelbschupflunde bred in the 19th century still on the California Channel Islands, in the 20th century there was, however, no more colony. On the Farallon Islands, the main Californian colony in the 19th century there were still thousands of breeding pairs, the stock was in 1982 but only 100 breeding birds. On Wrangel Island and in the Russian Bering Sea each breed only a few pairs. The largest Asian colony is located on the island commander with more than 20,000 breeding birds and on the Talan Island 80,000 breeding birds. In Hokkaido, the stocks have fallen sharply. Cause of stock decline on several breeding islands is drowning in fishing nets, introduced predators and disturbance by humans.