We’re continuing to look at Alcids, one of the families of small, diving seabirds of the Northern Hemisphere. This is the first auklet we’ll look at, the Parakeet Auklet, a species of the North Pacific Ocean.

This is a beautiful seabird whose white irides (the area of the eye surrounding the iris) stand out dramatically from the black head, along with the striking, ornamental white facial plumes. The bright orange bill is nearly round. The breeding colonies are not large, and not densely populated, but you’d think otherwise from the sound, near-continuous whiney calls during courtship.

Parakeet Auklets have the widest range of any of the Alaskan auklets, spanning the northern Gulf of Alaska, most of the Bering Sea, the north Pacific south of the Aleutian Islands, and the Sea of Okhotsk…

WC nd Mrs. WC made a short road trip this week, chasing winter birds. The trip was amazingly successful, and there will be more than one blog post about it. Among the highlights a lifer and two and half species photographed for the first time.

The target birds – a primary reason for the trip – were Gray-crowned Rosy-finch and Black Rosy Finch, species that spend most of their lives at very high altitudes. In winter, they descend to alpine valleys when snowfall makes foraging higher up impossible. We’d had reports of both species at feeders outside of Ketchum. But shortly before we left, we were told the birds were no longer around. We spent some time in south-central Idaho anyway, and as we were heading back to Boise Mrs. WC got a text message saying the birds were back. With help from Poo Wright-Pulliam and her friend, Joanna, we…