Locality: South Jetty of the Columbia River
Dates: June 21,2003
Time of Day: between 09:20
Reporting observers: Mike Patterson
1338 Kensington Av.
Astoria, OR 97103
Light conditions: overcast; good visibility
Optical equipment: 25x60 Bushnell spotting scope
Distance from bird: 150 to 200 meters
Duration of observation: about 1 minute
Habitat: near ocean surf and area just beyond main breakers
Behavior: While scanning the ocean I picked up a small, black and white alcid flying just beyond the breakers. It flew with a fairly confident, typical murrelet flight style.
Description: Small. All dark above; all white below.
Upperparts uniformly dark. Upper parts seen well; there was no trace of light scapular bars.
Underparts uniformly white from throat to undertail coverts. Crisp demarcation between dark above and white below. Black extended past median line at pectoral. White extended up past median line anterior of this.
Underwing gray, paler than the upperwing, but not flashy.
Bill small and black.
Similar Species: I cannot unequivocally exclude non-breeding or juvenile Marbled Murrelet. Adult Marbled Murrelets in non-breeding plumage would be unusual at this time of year. Hatch-year Marbled Murrelets do begin to appear by mid-June, but in most cases should not be as cleanly marked, should be dingier below and should also show some white on the upper parts. The bird I saw, however did not show an extensive white collar as would be expected on Marbled Murrelet and had a clean, straight border separating the black from the white beginning at the base of the bill and extending back to well behind the auricular.
Previous experience: I've seen lots of Marbled Murrelets.
