For humans the sea is the last frontier, a place so foreign we think it’s uninhabited.  But it’s not.  The open ocean is home to millions of birds we never see on land:  petrels, albatrosses and storm-petrels.

Acclaimed ornithologist and author, Steve N. G. Howell, has written an excellent reference book about them, newly published by Princeton University Press. Petrels, Albatrosses & Storm-Petrels of North America describes in detail all the tubenoses (Procellariiformes) found off the coasts of North America.

Tubenoses earned their name because their nostrils are encased in tubes on top of their straight, hook-tipped beaks.  The structures help them smell their food, even in the dark, and excrete salt from the seawater they drink.  Tubenoses are excellent fliers and often make long migrations, sometimes circling an entire ocean in both hemispheres.

The book’s introduction helps us understand the sea and the birds who live there.  The oceans are mobile and full of currents, windy on the edges, windless in the middle with hotspots of abundance and places as barren as a desert.  The food supply can change in a day, in a season, and with storms.  The birds live on the wind.

The species descriptions are incredibly detailed with field identification, plumage and molt, distribution, and behavior.  Every account is richly illustrated with photographs of the birds and related or similar species.  The photographs are amazing, sharp and clear, even when there are towering waves in the background.  Quite a feat in a rocking boat!

The best tip in the book is one that has helped me on the few pelagic trips I’ve made in the Gulf of Maine.  Before you go out to sea, study the birds you’re likely to encounter (only 12 to 20 species on a day-trip, of which 4-10 will be tubenoses).  Early study really helps because it’s hard to juggle a field guide while observing birds on a windy boat.

Petrels, Albatrosses & Storm-Petrels of North America is a solid reference guide.  At 500 pages it weighs 4 pounds.  You might think this is too heavy to carry in the field — certainly it’s much more detailed than a field guide — but consider this.  To see these birds you must be on an ocean-going boat that has tables where you can set the book down and study it while you motor out to sea.

If you’re planning to see or study tubenoses you’ll want to own Petrels, Albatrosses & Storm-Petrels of North America by Steve N. G. Howell.  Click on the image above to read more about the book and buy it at Princeton University Press.

(book cover from Princeton University Press)

p.s. If you have the book in hand, check out my favorite photograph on page 66.

This amazing block of ice floated to the sea in Iceland.

Its beauty tempted two photographers to try to capture its image.   Click here to see what happened when they set up their tripods.

(photo by Andreas Tille, a featured picture on Wikimedia Commons)

Here’s a bird that surprised everyone.

White ibises usually live along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts from North Carolina through Florida, south to Central and South America.  They also breed in Louisiana and southern Arkansas but in winter they move further south.

Not all of them do.  This immature white ibis showed up at Kaercher Lake in Hamburg, Pennsylvania on November 11 and has spent the early winter there.

Though surprising, this out of range behavior is not unheard of.  Cornell’s Birds of North American Online says that white ibises are highly nomadic.  Their “postbreeding dispersals often take individuals outside normal nonbreeding range” as far north as New York, Vermont and Quebec, as far west as Wyoming, Colorado and North Dakota.

Young birds are more likely to go north and inland.  Banded individuals have been found as much as 1,540 miles from home.  That’s the distance from Altoona, PA to Denver, CO.  These birds really travel!

Interestingly, white ibises don’t nest until they’re three years old so immature birds have a couple of years in which to wander.

Who knows where this ibis came from or where he’ll end up?  For now he’s unusual.  As of Tuesday (Dec 27) he’s still at Kaercher Creek Park.

(photo by Charlie Hickey)

These sightings are just the start of something big.

As winter comes to North America, gulls move to open water.  Those that breed in the arctic move to openings in the sea ice (called polynyas) but a few fly south and join the flocks of ring-billed and herring gulls at the coasts and on the Great Lakes.

In very cold years the Great Lakes freeze in February and the gulls move south.  That’s when they find Pittsburgh.

In early 2007 the weather was extremely cold for several weeks.  That February Pittsburgh’s rivers were treated to eight species of gulls at the same time. (We usually have two.)  In addition to herring and ring-billed gulls there were Bonaparte’s gulls and five Allegheny County rarities:

• Iceland gull:  breeds in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and on the coast of Greenland, winters on the coast of Greenland in arctic polynyas and sometimes on the coast of western Europe.
• Thayer’s gull: breeds in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and on the coast of Greenland, winters on the Pacific coast.
• Glaucous gull: breeds on the arctic coasts of Canada and Greenland, winters on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, Hudson Bay, and on the Great Lakes.
• Lesser black-backed gull: breeds in Iceland, Britain and western Europe, winters on the coasts of Europe and Africa. A few spend the winter on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
• Great black-backed gull:  an Atlantic coastal gull that breeds in northern Europe, Iceland, Greenland and along the Canadian and northern U.S. coasts. It’s a year-round resident in the southern part of its range.

There are photos of the 2007 gull event on Geoff Malosh’s website.

Last week ice began forming on western Pennsylvania lakes. Soon one, then two, black-headed gulls showed up at Moraine State Park.

Slowly the ice will thicken.  If the weather stays cold in January — really cold — Lake Erie will freeze and more gulls will come south to Pittsburgh.

Perhaps they’ll bring some rare friends with them.

That’s why gull watchers love ice.

(photo of a ring-billed gull on the ice at Pymatuning by Shawn Collins)

Black-headed gulls are native to Europe and Asia though a small population crosses the North Atlantic to spend the winter in the Canadian Maritimes.  They are rare in the northeastern U.S. and extremely rare west of the Appalachians, so of course this bird attracted a lot of attention.

He was not a Life Bird for me but far more satisfying than the first one I saw at the exact same spot in December 1998.  Back then I was disappointed.  I was so new to identifying gulls that I knew I’d never be able to recognize him again without help.  He looked like a Bonaparte’s gull.

Just like a Bonaparte’s his head is not black in winter.  It’s only dark during the breeding season and then it’s not really black, it’s chocolate brown.  (Here’s what he looks like with a chocolate brown head.)   So much for his name.

The big difference between the two is that the black-headed gull has a red beak and red legs.  You can see these features easily in Cris Hamilton’s photos of a black-headed gull at (yes!) the exact same location in December 2008.  You can also see two faint lines that reach over his head from eye to eye and from ear to ear.  Someone remarked yesterday that the lines looked like he was wearing a set of headphones.

Black-headed gulls are halfway in size between Bonaparte’s and ring-billed gulls, the two North American species they typically hang out with.  Though they look like Bonaparte’s gulls their lifestyle is most similar to the ring-billed.  This puts them in an odd situation.  Should they associate with lifestyle cohorts or try to blend in?

This one chose to hang out with those who could help him find food.  Yesterday the ring-billed gulls chased him occasionally but otherwise rested peacefully, so he’s probably made a wise choice.  He’ll find a lot of food and make it through the winter.

I wonder if he’ll return next year.

(photos by Cris Hamilton)

If you haven’t seen this video already you don’t want to miss it.

Back on August 5, Science Friday featured this four minute program that shows how cephalopods (squid, octopus and cuttlefish) are able to camouflage themselves in an instant.

Before you click to play the video, can you see the octopus clinging to that sea plant?

(video from Science Friday)

Red-breasted mergansers have arrived at Lake Erie. 

These are cold weather ducks whose breeding range is holarctic.  In North America they winter at the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts and on the Great Lakes.  This week at Lake Erie Jerry McWilliams has reported large numbers of them, more than 1,500 at a time. 

Like many diving ducks, red-breasted mergansers’ legs are positioned so far back on their bodies that it’s awkward for them to walk.  They don’t spend much time on land. 

On the other hand, they excel in water and in the air. Their claim to fame is that they’re fastest ducks on earth.  Red-breasted mergansers have been clocked at 80 miles per hour in level flight (some say 100 mph). 

How do they do this?  Scientists say their wings are shaped for high speed and they’re able to do a special maneuver with their feathers.  During the upstroke red-breasted mergansers reverse the tips of their primary feathers to provide greater propulsion, especially during takeoff. 

They aren’t the fastest bird on earth.  Peregrine falcons are.  Peregrines can dive at 200 miles per hour and they’re so famous for eating ducks that their nickname is the “duck hawk.”   

So how would a peregrine match up against a red-breasted merganser if he had to chase it in level flight?   He’d lose.  The peregrine’s maximum level flight speed is 70 mph.  

This is one duck that could escape a peregrine falcon — if the peregrine’s on his level. 

Talk about speed! 

(photo by Steve Gosser)

He’s related to our wood ducks.  Can you see the resemblance?

Mandarins are originally from Asia but so beautiful that they’re often raised in captivity.  Escapees sometimes form a wild population, as they have in Britain, Ireland and a few places in the U.S.

This one is swimming through the reflection of the Jungle Place at the Hanover Zoo, Hanover, Germany.

(photo by Michael Gäbler on Wikimedia Commons, selected as picture of the day for 3 September 2010.  Click on the image to see the original.)

Along with many other birds, gulls were killed for their feathers to adorn ladies’ hats.  Back then their breeding range shrank to the areas uninhabited by humans — the prairie potholes of the U.S. and Canada. 

After the 1917 Migratory Birds Convention Act was passed, it took the gulls a while to recover but by the 1970′s they were on a roll.  Between 1976 and 1984 their breeding numbers increased 11% per year in the Great Lakes region.

The reason for their success can be summed up in this picture:  It’s safe to be around people now and gulls are opportunistic feeders.  They’re more than happy to eat what we eat.

“Get away!  This bread is mine!”

(photo of ring-billed gulls at Pymatuning spillway (where the ducks walk on the fish) by Steve Gosser)

Fulvous is a color:  dull reddish-yellow, brownish yellow or tawny.

You can see how he got his name.

(photo by Branko Kannenberg on Wikimedia Commons.  This photo was a finalist for Picture of the Year 2009.  Click on the photo to see the original)