Help! Last year when we were cruising round-trip out of Seattle, we were up late and out on the balcony multiple nights. During the night, we could see birds diving into the ocean. It was so dark that we could not see the birds well, mostly flash of movement, and they did not seem to just be swooping down but actually diving since they disappeared from view at water level. It was very strange and we watched them for quite a while. We did not hear any bird sounds. We assumed that the birds were using the lights from the cruise ship which might lure fish closer to the surface? Can anyone help us identify which birds might be out hunting very late/early morning?
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Birds at night during Alaska cruise (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter MissAunt
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- ak cruise night birds
nartreb
Speak softly and carry a long lens
What time of year (month), and where? Alaska is huge. (And much of it doesn't really get dark in the summer, so... were you in the panhandle?)
Lots of seabirds feed at night, and indeed it's fairly likely that you saw more than one kind of diving bird. But with a date and location we can probably name three or four likely suspects. To do better than that we might need some info about the size of the birds, their flight styles (did they hover? Dive straight down? Fly very low? Beat their wings many times per second?), what you could see of their color (e.g., bright white marks on the wings would be pretty obvious, even at night) and wing shape...
Lots of seabirds feed at night, and indeed it's fairly likely that you saw more than one kind of diving bird. But with a date and location we can probably name three or four likely suspects. To do better than that we might need some info about the size of the birds, their flight styles (did they hover? Dive straight down? Fly very low? Beat their wings many times per second?), what you could see of their color (e.g., bright white marks on the wings would be pretty obvious, even at night) and wing shape...
SustainabilityCarmen
Well-known member
One possibility could be the red faced cormorants? The behavior reminded me of how the double crested cormorants were acting when I studied them off the coast of Maine. But I couldn't know for sure.
Go to Cornell University Bird Website and look up these cormorants, and see if they resemble what you heard and saw. They are a good resource for Bird ID.
Red-faced Cormorant Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Puffins also like to dive under the water and then come back out with a beak full of fish. And their cute fluffy babies are called pufflings. Aww
Here's a link to Alaska FWS birding website: Alaska's Birders' Birds — Red-faced Cormorant, Alaska Department of Fish and Game
Here's a story about cormorants diving 150 ft into the ocean. Deep birds: Comormants can dive 150 feet to hunt for fish | HeraldNet.com
Go to Cornell University Bird Website and look up these cormorants, and see if they resemble what you heard and saw. They are a good resource for Bird ID.
Red-faced Cormorant Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of OrnithologyPuffins also like to dive under the water and then come back out with a beak full of fish. And their cute fluffy babies are called pufflings.
Aww Here's a link to Alaska FWS birding website: Alaska's Birders' Birds — Red-faced Cormorant, Alaska Department of Fish and Game
Here's a story about cormorants diving 150 ft into the ocean. Deep birds: Comormants can dive 150 feet to hunt for fish | HeraldNet.com
I work on boats in SE AK in the summer. The most common seabirds that sit on the water and dive when approached by vessels are - surf scoters (often in groups with white patches on back of neck), marbled murrelets (small, brown/black and in pairs) and pigeon guillemots (black and white with red feet and in small groups). The noisiest ones are the murrelets who sing a really cute song all night. These three species were 90% of the birds you saw on the water there!
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Do you mean diving from the surface like Cormorants or going in from the air like Gannets?
