Tuxedo Birds

Razorbills

"Any alcids?" comes the greeting from someone arriving with spotting scope and Downeast parka at the Halibut Point parking lot as you're trundling back from the shore with reddened cheeks, mittens, tripod and telephoto lens. It's partly an informational inquiry and partly an affable sniff for kindred conversation. How you manage that invitation opens or closes an esoteric portal to camaraderie, like an insider's handshake.

Recognizing the term gives you momentary cachet in the encounter. A quick review of recent sightings buys further credibility. But you might not cross the bridge into fraternity short of rendering a phlegmatic report on the prospects for the day, faintly seasoned with the absurdity of forsaking comfort for uncertain success in glimpsing and identifying these largely pelagic birds.

Alcids make you think of flying penguins. They feather themselves only in black and white. They can be distinguished by the shapes of their bills as well as plumage variations but seldom come close enough for clear discernments. Often it is severe weather, especially nor'easters, that brings them inshore for a glance between wave crests at plump-bodied long-winged avians trying to adjust to the storm. Truth to tell, birders on a seawatch often park obliquely to the coast and cradle their scopes in the car window. But you can't do that in the State Park.

Conditions of salty wind and rain discourage photography. On a fair day, however, in late fall or winter you have a reasonable chance of seeing alcids from Halibut Point drumming along single file toward the horizon. To the unaided eye they appear as flashes separated from the whitecaps by the rhythmic linearity of their flight. Occasionally a vivid speck enlarges closer in on the water surface, then dives for an improbable time and distance. How it manages to appear and disappear often confounds careful observers.

I took up the allure of alcids this year with the aid of my new 500mm zoom lens. It gives an aspect of being on safari. I scan systematically with binoculars to locate prospects then jump to the camera's viewfinder to try to pinpoint the desirable dot in sea or sky. I anticipate an exposure balance for the highly contrasting surfaces of the plumage, and of the surroundings. I hope that whatever success I may have in accepting failure and disappointment may benignly influence my general demeanor

Alcids go about their business in the depths of the ocean with wings as necessary for swimming as for flying. They come to land only at nesting time. The simplicity of their markings and their extreme environmental adaptation seem to set them apart from other bird families. But how much more or less remarkable are they than sparrows and peacocks?

In the gallery below you can ponder the subtleties of following the alcid clan. I'm still at it, eyes peeled for a puffin.

Common Murre

Thick-billed Murre

Dovekie

Razorbills

Black Guillemot, adult non-breeding plumage (Oct-Feb)

Black Guillemot, juvenile

Black Guillemot, adult breeding plumage (Feb-Sep)