Better Know a Bird: The Wild and Kinky Mating Rituals of the Crested Auklet

By Meghan Bartels

An undisturbed Crested Auklet courting pair (male on right, female on left - identifiable by their differing bill shape). Photo: Ian L. Jones

 

A Crested Auklet colony during the summer is a feast for the senses. It’s loud, with hundreds or thousands of birds clattering and squawking. Each bird is a visual spectacle: Decked out in dusky gray, they look like five-year-olds who broke into Mom’s makeup, with orange Joker smiles, extravagant white eye plumes, and gravity-defying feather crests. And then there’s the smell—a bright tangerine scent so fragrant that researchers can sniff out the birds’ colonies, which are found on islands off Alaska’s coast, from more than a hundred yards away...http://www.audubon.org/news/better-know-bird-wild-and-kinky-mating-rituals-crested-auklet

Ian Jones