Common Murre

Thursday, September 30, 2004 7 p.m. Refreshments, 7:30 p.m. Program Lecture Hall, Monterey Boatworks, Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove (Across from American Tin Cannery Outlet Stores) Speakers: Hannahrose Nevins and Josh Adams

Located inside the southern reaches of the California Current System, Monterey Bay and surrounding waters provide abundant resources to support a diverse assemblage of locally breeding and wide-ranging migratory seabirds. Common Murre (Uria aalge) is one of California's most abundant breeding seabirds with important, southernmost colonies located along the Big Sur Coast. Each year, residents and travelers alike can view hundreds of murres as they attend eggs and chicks on steep windswept rock faces of Castle and Hurricane Rocks. Come listen and see how murres make their living fishing the cool, productive waters of the Bay. Local seabird biologist Hannahrose Nevins will enlighten you with the history of murres in California, provide insight to their interesting ecology and natural history both above and below the surface of the sea, and discuss some of her results obtained throughout her tenure as a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

Just as the murres on Hurricane Rock are starting to lay eggs, and the wind-roughened sea seems momentarily abandoned, a distant, continuous band of Sooty Shearwater (Puffinus griseus) makes its way into the bay arcing and gliding afore the wind-spun swell. The annual arrival of millions of sooties to the California Current from distant breeding colonies off Chile, New Zealand, and Tasmania is regarded as a defining annual event in the eyes of local residents. These impressive animals have flown almost half-way around the world to spend the summer feeding on shoaling fishes in order to recover from the cost of migration, and to renew their feathers in preparation for their return to breeding islands in the southern hemisphere. Listen to Josh Adams tell the tale of the Sooty Shearwater, true denizen of the Pacific. Josh will share with you some exciting new research as he and his colleagues prepare to track the 6000-mile return migration of birds as they navigate their way across the vast ocean from Monterey Bay to southern hemisphere colonies.

Sooty Shearwater Drawing © Sophie Webb

Related web pages: