Continuing with the tour of birds on St. Paul, next is the thick-billed murre. They form mixed breeding colonies alongside common murres, a familiar seabird off California. At first glance the two species might seem identical, but look closer and you'll see that thick-billed murres have a white stripe extending from the gape on the upper mandible, and the white breast feathers form an inverted "V" on the throat. They are also slightly beefier than common murres, with a heavier head and bill. Thick-billed murres are a circumpolar breeder, with colonies throughout the arctic and sub-arctic waters of Alaska, Russia, Canada, and Greenland. Ecologically murres fulfill the same niche in the northern hemisphere as penguins in the south, however murres have retained their ability to fly - but just barely.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM + 1.4x, ISO-400 f/6.3 @ 1/320 sec.
No comments:
Post a Comment