Music over footage and agency emblem
Classical music over footage of scenes of nesting habitat for the marbled murrelet.
Hi, I'm Deanna Lynch. I'm a fish and wildlife biologist
with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I'm based in the Washington state field office.
And I wanted to provide you with some information about a threatened species
we have here in the Pacific Northwest called the marbled murrelet.
The marbled murrelet occurs offshore from central California
in the Monterey Bay area all along with western United States coast
through British Columbia and into the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.
But the listed populations occurs in Washington, Oregon and California.
The marbled murrelet is a diving seabird.
It spends most of its time at the ocean but it nests inland
in forested habitat. It's about the size of a robin.
It's a brown, mottled coloration during breeding season.
And then during the winter season, it's more of a distinct black and white.
This coloration makes it easier for them to avoid predators.
And then during the breeding season being in that brown, mottled color
helps them blend into the forested environment.
The other interesting thing about murrelets and is somewhat repetitive of other seabirds
is that they aren't really very good at moving on land.
Their body is designed to be swimming underwater.
Couple of interesting things to point out:
is that they have webbed feet, and it makes made for swimming really well--they use these as a rudder--
and they swim with their wings. And these are set back really far on their body as you can see
which also makes it difficult for them to walk on land.
When they occur on the ocean, they are generally within about 3 miles of shore,
but it varies very dependent upon where they're at within their range,
and in some places within their range they are much closer to shore.
They are primarily out there to forage. They spend time there resting.
That's where they mate, and all of their foraging occurs at sea.
During the breeding season is when they come inland to nest
It's usually old growth, mature forested habitat--conifer trees.
And they don't really build a nest so they are unique among seabirds in that respect.
Within those trees they will nest on branches or large limbs that usually have moss or a covering on that.
And will have a cover above the nest to provide it from aerial predator view.
Usually these stands are large -- their preference would be 500 acres or more.
They only lay one egg.
So they don't have a large clutch.
It's one single egg that the adults will incubate for about 30 days.
They do it for about 24 hours.
The female will be on the nest for about 24 hours incubating and then they trade off.
The male will incubate for 24 hours while the female goes back out to sea to forage.
Once the chick has hatched, and come out of the egg,
they don't attend that chick any more.
other than when they bring forage in.
So they go back out to sea, the adults, and they will catch fish.
And they will usually bring one single fish, fly it back inland, and feed it to the chick.
As the chick gets larger, they will bring in larger fish, but it has to be a pretty small
bait fish like sandlance, or herring or anchovies.
Those are the types of fish that they are primarily feeding to their chick.
And then the chick fledges. And when the chick fledges,
it doesn't get anybody to help it to make its way out to the ocean.
Somehow, when they are out on the ocean, the juveniles tend to find each other
and find the other adults. Most other seabirds are closer to the water.
usually on big rock structures or cliffs, and they are more colonial.
Whereas murrelets tend to be in the forested area by themselves.
The marbled murrelet is a mysterious bird--their whole life is really designed to be cryptic.
Their plumage, their winter versus breeding keeps them being detected by predators.
They also tend to fly inland during the dawn and dusk hours when they are more hidden from predators.
And, they also nest away from other murrelets.
So they aren't drawing in predators into their nest.
When they hear or detect a predator approaching them, they will freeze in place,
and then they hunker down and become invisible.
in the nesting habitat. And when they are approached at sea,
they dive and they move away and they are really quick and evasive.
But all of these things make it so that people can't find them, so they are really hard to find,
really hard to observe and learn about. So they are pretty mysterious still.
Thanks for taking the time to learn about the marbled murrelet.
For more information you can visit the Fish and Wildlife Service's websites.
classical music over credits