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Daily Bucket: Friday Sequence, Common Murres and more Murres, where do I fit in? [1]

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Date: 2023-06-16

Murres are so different from any other bird I have watched. They only come onto land to breed, andspend the rest of their lives at sea. They can dive over 150 feet deep by wing propulsion and stay under water for up to a minute.

In breeding, the female lays only one egg. No nest is used. The egg is laid on a crevice in the rock. The eggs are shaped so they don’t roll away, but only in a circle. Each egg is unique (just like our iris or fingerprints). That way the parents can tell which egg is theirs. It’s in the female’s DNA to create the same color and pattern each year she lays her egg.

Murre eggs are different colors with different unique patterns.

Murres spend most of their time far at sea. Most of us would never see them.

Sometimes they pack in very close before they make their way to the sea stacks.

But when they come ashore, they come in huge numbers to breed. It’s easy to see them if you are in the right set of sea stacks like Ms. JG and I were at Newport, OR.

Murres like rocky sea stacks. This sea stack is also used by Cormorants in their nests. They start coming in from the water to the rocky cliffs. see closer

Soon many more join in.

The Cormorants don’t seem to mind the crowded conditions.

Another nearby larger sea stack fills up with Murres.

It seems where there is white, there are Murres. :)

Hey. Can I have a square inch, please?

Another sea stack. see closer

We watched for over an hour as Murre after Murre came to land from the water, finding every small space to fill up. There were some scuffles with poking of beaks and chest bumps.

This video shows head bobbing. If you look closely, you can see a beak to beak squabble. At the end you will see some Turkey Vultures and some gulls on top of the sea stack.

Another video showing Murres interacting.

How do they even have enough room to flap their wings?

In this photo, it seemed one was trying to lead the others in a rousing song. As a whole, they were making a lot of noise.

But then another drama started.

Gulls and Turkey Vultures landed on top of the sea stack, making the Murres move down off the top.

There are still some Murres on nests, but many have left their nests in fear. Can you find an egg? find the egg

Notice the eggs? Recognize them from the second photo telling about the eggs? I removed the beak from the gull in the earlier photo. Now you know why there wasn’t a Murre on the egg to incubate it.

This is the photo that I enlarged for the photo above. I was using a 700mm lens to get this photo. I had to really crop it to get the close up photo.

Remember what I told about the shape of the egg so that is wouldn’t roll down a hill, but would roll in a circle. That’s not true if a gull nudges it out of its little crevice down a steep rocky cliff.



One gull has nudged the egg and started it rolling down the hill. The gull at the top of the photo has a green egg in its bill. see eggs closer

See the egg? Wish I would have taken a video. Notice the gull with the green egg in the middle of the photo. There is also a speckled egg below the gull in the upper right. look for both eggs.

From this view, you can see the two gulls on the far right with eggs by them. You can also see more Murres still on their nests. Survival… look for Murre eggs

We had so many questions as we watched the drama. How many eggs actually get hatched? Of those, how many survive to go out to sea? What were Turkey Vultures that also landed on the sea stack doing there?

On my next Friday Sequence Bucket, I will share photos of Bald Eagles, Turkey Vultures and more gulls that came to the sea stacks. I will also have photos of Brown Pelicans, Harlequin Ducks, mating Pigeon Guillemots, mating and nesting Pelagic Cormorants, and an Oystercatcher or two.



Now it’s your turn. Please add any experiences you have had with Common Murres. The Bucket is now open for comments.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/16/2175044/-Daily-Bucket-Friday-Sequence-Common-Murres-and-more-Murres-where-do-I-fit-in

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