Crested Auklet (Aethia cristatella)

Crested Auklet, Zapadni Cliffs, St. Paul Island, Alaska
Photograph by Alan And Elaine Wilson. Some rights reserved. (view image details)

CRESTED AUKLET FACTS

Description
The Crested Auklet is mainly black with a broad orange bill, and thin white stripe behind the eye. They eye is pale yellow white. During the breeding season the Crested Auklet has a prominent crest of bristle feathers on the top of the forehead. Males and females are similar. Juveniles are similar to adults with dark bill and no crest.

Size
18cm

Environment
rocky slopes, cliffs, boulder fields. Needs plenty of rock crevices for nesting colony. Only comes ashore to breed.

Food
krill, also copepods, pteropods, amphipods, fish larvae

Breeding
The Crested Auklet nests in huge colonies that can number over one million birds. They often breed in mixed colonies with Least Auklets. It lays a single egg in a crevice. Both male and female help to rear the young which fledges after about 33 days

Range
Inhabits islands and waters of Alaska. Nests in the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk including. In United States nests around the Alaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands

Classification

Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Alcidae
Genus:	Aethia
Species:	cristatella
Common Name:	Crested Auklet

Relatives in same Genus
Parakeet Auklet (A. psittacula)
Least Auklet (A. pusilla)

  HOME
  ANIMAL LISTS
   Mammals
   Reptiles
   Birds
   Insects

BIRDS
Passerines

Non-Passerines: Land

Non-Passerines: Water