[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

This video showed up today on OrangeCountyBirding@groups.io chatline. It’s actually two short videos back-to-back of the Ancient Murrelet that’s been hanging around offshore. These very cute 10″ football-shaped birds, a member of the Alcidae (auks**, murres & puffins) family, nest in Alaska, particular in the Aleutian archipelago, plus the shores of southern and peninsular Alaska. They’re rare winterers south of San Luis Obispo County and mostly well off-shore, so spotting one near-shore in Orange County is a pretty big deal (in the rarefied atmosphere of the birding community). In the winter they eat mostly crustaceans and (probably) small fish.

Dr. Joel Weintraub, who posted this video, also has a bunch of videos pertaining to birding, binoculars, telescopes, plus censusing and Ellis Island. If you feel you knowledge of these areas needs brushing up, check them out at: https://www.youtube.com/@JDWTalks

Wikipedia has a reasonably good write-up on Ancient Murrelets, which are “ancient” because of the gray shawl-like coloring of their back (think: Whistler’s mother) and the white streaks (mostly in breeding) on their head and nape.

**Auk: The word “auk” /ɔːk/ is derived from Icelandic álka and Norwegian alka or alke from Old Norse ālka from Proto-Germanic *. I can’t find any sources that say (or admit) that the word was originally onomatopoetic for its vocalizations.