Figure 182. To an early July record of the Crested Auklet from Baja California, California adds two records from late June and mid July, hinting at an incipient pattern of summer vagrancy. All three records involve adults, including this female photographed off Bodega Head, Sonoma County, on 24 June 1995 (1995-069; James Lomax).

 

 

 

 

 

CRESTED AUKLET Aethia cristatella (Pallas, 1769)

Accepted: 2 (67%)	Treated in Appendix H: no
Not accepted: 1	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 0	Color image: none

This auklet breeds in western Alaska, from the Diomede Islands south through islands of the Bering Sea to the Aleutian Islands, and in eastern Siberia from the Chukotskiy Peninsula south to the central Kuril Islands. Non-breeders range in summer to northern Alaska and northern Siberia. In winter the species occurs from the southern Bering Sea east to around Kodiak Island and straggles south to Japan. There is an inland record for Alaska, and birds have also strayed to Iceland, Greenland (Boertmann 1994), British Columbia, and Baja California (Pitman et al. 1983).

An adult male Crested Auklet observed on 16 July 1979 in the surf about three miles north of Bolinas, Marin County, was found dead on the beach the following day (Weyman 1980). Sixteen years later, an adult female was photographed off Bodega Head in Sonoma County (Figure 182). The bird in Baja California was seen on 7 July 1980, meaning that the three records for the southern Pacific coast form a tight grouping between 24 June and 16 July.