Category: photography

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 4, 2026 • 8:30 am

Very few people are sending in wildlife photos, so if you have some good ones, shoot them my way, please.  Fortunately, ecologist Susan Harrison has come through with another batch from Oregon. Susan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Mt. McLoughlin, Oregon  

In southern Oregon at the tail end of summer, climbing a volcano to look for Gray-crowned Rosy-finches (Leucosticte tephrocotis) seemed like a fun thing to do.

Gray-crowned Rosy-finch (photo from AllAboutBirds):

Per AllAboutBirds, “This delicate pink-and-brown songbird is among the hardiest of all birds. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches nest in the highest parts of the highest mountains in North America… they forage, seemingly at complete ease, on snowfields, forbidding talus slopes, and in high winds or snowstorms… (It) probably holds the record for highest-altitude breeding bird in North America.”

Who could resist looking for such superlative birds??  It required only a day hike to a 9,500-foot peak not far from my home base in Ashland, Oregon. The peak, Mt. McLoughlin, is just north of Mt. Shasta in the Cascade volcanic chain. The trail goes up its east (= right, in the photo below) side.

Mt. McLoughlin from the south:

Hikers often get lost as they descend the peak.  Near the summit there is no clear trail in the loose ash and talus, and if you start a few degrees off-course you’ll end up far from your destination.  Accordingly, there are many warning signs and route markers.

Trail warning sign:

The last half-mile to the summit is steep and slow going.  This is the likeliest place to see Rosy-finches – which, alas, I did not see.

Approach to the summit, with trail on the left:

However, I did make it to the summit and back safely!

Summit:

The main birds I saw at the top were several Rock Wrens (Salpinctes obsoletus) and a pair of Sharp-shinned Hawks (Accipiter striatus) chasing around a Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius).

Rock Wren:

Hawk chasing Harrier:

On the descent it became easier to pay attention to other small wildlife.

Scruffy juvenile Canada Jay (Perisoreus canadensis);  or is it an “American Jay” now??:

Townsend’s Solitaire (Myadestes townsendi):

Yellow-pine Chipmunk (Neotamias amoenus):

Rounding out this photo set, a few other recent scenes from the southern Oregon Cascades…

Upper Rogue River just below Crater Lake, where it flows through the collapsed lava tubes of ancient Mount Mazama:

Lower Rogue River at Blossom Bar rapid, where it flows through a scary and occasionally lethal (to rafters and kayakers) feature called the Picket Fence:

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 3, 2026 • 8:30 am

Today’s arthropod photos come from a visit to Poland from reader Jan Malik.  Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them (once or twice):

During my visit to Poland in June this year, I spent a few hours with a macro lens, looking for arthropods in three different habitats: a xerothermic dry meadow, a subalpine bog, and an alpine zone in the Tatra Mountains. I did my best to identify the species, but I can offer no guarantees as they were new to me.

First, the dipterans from the hoverfly family, all Batesian mimics of the more ferocious Hymenoptera. The Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) resembles a honeybee or a small bumblebee quite convincingly; it even buzzes like a bee. I believe this is a female, judging by the widely spaced eyes:

Another hoverfly, this time a wasp mimic, is possibly a Sphecomyia vespiformis. Like all Diptera, its antennae are short, but here, to increase similarity to a wasp with long antennae, they grow from an elongated column on the insect’s face:

Rounding up the order Diptera is a possible Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus). This female is a peaceful pollinator as an adult, but its larva is a predator of aphids:

Moving over to the order Lepidoptera, the first is a moth (genus Gillmeria); at first sight, I thought it was a crane fly, but long antennae place it firmly as a plume moth, even though I’m not sure which species it is. When at rest, these insects are masters of camouflage, resembling dried-out twigs:

Possibly a Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus), which is common in this part of Europe:

A final lepidopteran is a skipper (family Hesperiidae), but it is difficult to pin it down to a species. Possibly a Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris), going by the orange tip of its antenna?:

Now for Coleoptera (beetles): a Black longicorn beetle (Spondylis buprestoides). Both adults and larvae have powerful jaws which they use to chew through the wood of dead trees, accelerating the carbon cycle:

The next insect, from the same longhorn beetle family as the previous one, is a Black-striped Longhorn Beetle (Stenurella melanura), probably a female. The larvae feed on rotting wood, but adults prefer pollen:

Another coleopteran is a Common Red Soldier Beetle (Rhagonycha fulva). Its red color is an honest warning—when disturbed, they exude a fluid containing defensive acids that can cause chemical irritation. Here it feeds on pollen, but like other soldier beetles, if an aphid or a caterpillar is found, it is also eaten.

The last coleopteran, hiding in a flower during the rain, is a leaf beetle from the genus Cryptocephalus (I will go out on a limb and say the Dead-nettle Leaf Beetle, Cryptocephalus aureolus). The genus name originates from its head, which is tucked below the protective chitin armor:

Now for the arachnophiles amongst the readers, an orb-weaver spider (family Araneidae) having a meal out of a fly. Orb-weavers are highly variable in color, changing them to match their surroundings. They recycle their webs often by eating them and spinning new ones:

Another araneae, possibly a Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi), is a close European cousin of the common American yellow garden spider. Like its New World relative, it spins a ladder-like structure called a stabilimentum. The discussion is ongoing as to what the adaptive purpose of this structure is: possibly a UV reflector to lure bees or flies, or a warning for birds not to fly into it and destroy it, much like our window decals to prevent bird strikes:

The spider waiting inside the flower is a flower crab spider, likely a pale variant of the common Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia); I believe the same spiders are also abundant in North America. The flower could be a bellflower (genus Campanula). These spiders also change color, from greenish to yellow to off-white, matching the flowers where they sit in ambush:

Now for a few Hymenoptera—possibly a Black Garden Ant (Lasius niger) tending to a dense colony of Black Bean Aphids (Aphis fabae). Like many other ant species, they tap aphids with their antennae, and if the sucking hemipteran is ready, it releases a drop of sugary honeydew. In return, ants act as bodyguards, protecting the aphids from predatory hoverflies and ladybugs:

A parasitoid ichneumon wasp, possibly a Hoverfly larva parasitoid wasp (Diplazon laetatorius). It lays eggs in hoverfly larvae or eggs, and the wasp larva waits until its host grows big enough to become a substantial meal, then devours it from the inside. This species is said to be mostly parthenogenetic, with males being a rarity:

Another hymenopteran, a sawfly, is probably the Common Green Sawfly (Tenthredo mesomela). These sawflies are active predators of other small insects:

Lastly, I didn’t expect a Red-banded Froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata). Its two chief weapons are a nice red and black aposematic coloration, a habit of making itself scarce via powerful jumps, and joints in its legs that ooze a foul-tasting hemolymph if a predator decides to bite. Did a scientist actually taste that fluid to report on its bitter taste, or are we still waiting for a volunteer?:

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 2, 2026 • 8:15 am

Bruce Lyon has returned with Part 2 of his adventures with Arctic foxes, including photos and several videos.  Bruce’s captions and narrative are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here is a second batch of photos and videos of arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) on St Paul island. First batch here.

A parent resting by its den:

Below, a video from a couple of years ago of a very tame fox at the dump. Every time I went to the dump to check on some rosy-finch nests, this individual would run up very close to me and run circles around me, whining and barking and jumping up at me. I was amused and thought the fox was being friendly and curious but another biologist told me that this could be aggressive behavior—perhaps the fox was defending its den a bit too aggressively. That biologist had been bitten by foxes before:

This year we had a similar close encounter of the fox kind but this fox was at the harbor for the food and did not seem to have a den nearby. It seemed genuinely playful and curious and was particularly keen on nibbling my assistant’s rubber boots. Who doesn’t enjoy a chaw of boot rubber once in awhile?:

Earlier the fox in the above video had been munching on a clam that it probably got from the nearby pile of dredge material being scraped up from the floor of the harbor in a harbor improvement project. The dredge sediment seemed to be chock full of inverts like clams and seemed popular with at least a few foxes.

Back to the foxes with dens close to our lodging—one of these adults takes a large salmon tail to its pups:

If the pups are hidden in the den when a parent arrives with food the parent will sometimes just dump the food on the nearby beach for the pups to find later. The thick-billed murre carcass in the photo below was lying on the beach for some time before a pup finally discovered it:

Food fight or play? A couple of pups squabbled over a dead crab. I didn’t see much in the way of them eating the crab—either the crab was too far gone to be worth eating or the shell was a barrier:

A few photos of pups playing around the two dens near my lodging:

The pups do a lot of pouncing—here a pup pounces on a piece of cardboard:

Below, but it’s much more fun to pounce on a sibling:

Sometimes the squabbles among the pups seem like real fights. Below is a video of a family that had a den under a large metal CONEX container in town. Two of the pups seem to be having a serious fight, evidenced by the screaming. Normal play is not accompanies with this screaming. Perhaps these squabbles are used to establish dominance. Some studies have observed dominance hierarchies among the pups—the dominant individuals defend prey items and also take it from subordinates:

Here’s a video of the same family with a more playful scene:

Adult foxes that I at first thought were playing were more likely having a serious fight. This was near the harbor on a day when there were a lot of foxes hanging around, most of them peaceably. I saw these two foxes in the middle of the road, seemingly frolicking. One of the foxes was on its back in the typical dog submissive posture while the other was standing over it. All of a sudden the  one standing went at the submissive one, which ran like hell, right towards me. Look at the glorious fluffy tail on the fleeing animal!  My colleague Paula White, who has studied this population of foxes, tells me that fleeing subordinates often wave their tails in the face of the pursuers. Perhaps it is better to get bit on the tail than the butt? Waving a fluffy tail might also distract and confuse the chaser:

I will end with a family portrait:

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 27, 2026 • 8:15 am

Susan Harrison of UC Davis is back with some nice photographs of birds, including Barred Owls. Nearly half a million of these owls are scheduled to be shot in what I see as a misguided attempt to save the Northern Spotted Owl. I think Susan agrees with me here, but I won’t speak for her. At any rate, her IDs and captions are included and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Large birds of the Oregon Coast, August 2026

One fog-bound morning on the central Oregon coast, a fellow camper hailed me with “There’s an owl by the outhouses!”  This wasn’t a total surprise since, in the middle of the previous night, the distinctive “who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you” call of a Barred Owl (Strix varia) could be heard.  We watched as the large grey specter glided along the edge of a meadow, perching here and there in classic hunched-owl position to look and listen for camper-attracted rodents.

Barred Owl:

Sadly to me, the US Forest Service has announced plans to kill large numbers of Barred Owls in a desperate measure to save endangered Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina).   It’s a complicated issue upon which reasonable people (i.e., owl lovers) disagree, and you can read and decide for yourself here and elsewhere. But I will not reveal the location of any Barred Owl!

JAC: Let me add that the Northern Spotted Owl is a subspecies of the Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis) and is not itself a distinct species. There are in fact several subspecies of Spotted Owls.

A nearly full-grown Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) begged incessantly to be fed by one of its parents; the other sat silently in a neighboring tree.  The juvenile finally flew off to preen, but was quickly displaced from its perch by a Red-Shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) that repeatedly chased the young Osprey around the meadow.

Red-Shouldered Hawk:

At the nearby coast, Elegant Terns (Thalasseus elegans) and Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) held a bathing party, and the preening pelicans stretched their unearthly pouches:

Elegant Terns:

Brown Pelicans:

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 25, 2026 • 8:15 am

Evolutionary ornithologist Bruce Lyon has sent us a batch of lovely photos from his field work in Alaska, including baby Arctic foxes! (He works on birds, though.) Bruce’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here is a post on the arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) of Saint Paul Island, Alaska, where I spent the summer studying songbirds. Two years ago I shared some photos of foxes and text (here).

Arctic foxes are native to St Paul Island and virtually all individuals are blue-morph rather than white-morph foxes. Occasionally, white morph individuals do get to St Paul by crossing the winter sea ice. The morphs are apparently produced by a single Mendelian gene (the MC1R gene).

This year we had two dens that were very close to each other (150 meters apart). We could observe both dens from the windows of our lodging. Often the foxes are nestled away out of sight down in their dens. However, because we could watch the dens from our apartments we noticed whenever the pups were out and being active (mostly playing). If the activity seemed particularly fun I would hop in our truck and drive the 30 seconds it took to be right next to the dens (plus the vehicle serves as blind for close observations). One den had nine pups, the other five, and the pups sometimes joined together in a giant heap of fuzz all playing together , with some of the more excited ones jumping up and down like fleas. I am not sure how typical it is for pups from adjacent dens to have playdates!

The view of the salt lagoon and downtown St Paul and harbor in the back. At low tide the area to the left is one huge beach and the foxes frolic here. The dens are out of view to the left of the photo:

Portrait of an adult fox. The eyes are an interesting amber color:

The harbor sometimes has a large numbers of foxes; they scavenge the discarded parts of fish after the fish are cleaned. On one harbor visit we saw 20 foxes hanging around the harbor rocks, all fairly close together. A plethora of foxes!

A typical dark colored fox on the rocks:

A rare white morph individual:

The individual below looked like a sheep badly in need of shearing and we thought it was amusing—sadly, it turned out to be a sign that the animal is not doing well. All of the foxes molt their winter coats but arctic fox expert Paula White told me that the animal in this photo probably has a disease called Shaggy Lame Fox Syndrome. Paula thought this because the animal has a swollen ankle and animals in poor condition often molt later than healthy animals. This disease is apparently found only in Pribilof populations of foxes. Symptoms include “failure to shed winter pelage and moderate to severe polyarthritis”. Paula pointed out to me that this animal has a swollen front ankle:

The pups are adorable and I will share a few photos of them. I think ‘cute and fuzzy’ pretty much captures their essence:

Whenever I made a mouse-like squeaking noise the pups would cock their heads:

A sibling makes a good pillow:

One day from my window I saw an adult fox trotting across the sand flat near its den carrying what I thought was a gull but turned out to be a northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis; seabird related to albatross). The adult dropped the prey on the sand some distance from the den and the pups from the closest den (with nine pups) raced out and piled onto the carcass.  I quickly drove out to get closer and noted the adult was concerned about something. It then gave an alarm bark and everybody scattered. Less than a minute later the pups returned. Then an adult showed up, wrestled the carcass from the pups and took it to the other den. It seems that an adult from the second den came in and stole the prey. I am not sure why the fox who brought the fulmar in did not try to chase the thief off. The two dens do not seem hostile to each other generally because sometimes the pups from the two dens mingle and play together. Perhaps the adults are related?
 
The adult trotting with the fulmar:

What a northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) looks like when it is not dead in the mouth of a fox. They are quite pungent smelling—to me it is almost a mothball smell. I can imagine that they have a funky flavor but these foxes seem to eat almost anything.

I do not know how the fox got the fulmar. Perhaps scavenging a dead one? However, these foxes are very good at climbing cliffs and it is possible that the fox ambushed a fulmar near its nest on the cliffs. In the photo below, a fox takes a nap half way up a cliff:

Back to the drama. After dropping the fulmar on beach the parent seemed to be wary of something, and gave an alarm bark:

A bit later, the adult thief comes in to take the carcass while a pup bravely tries to scare it off”:

A tug-of-war followed:

Of course the adult won, and ran with the carcass the 150 meters to its own den:

The thief with its booty close to its den:

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 23, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today’s photos are from Dean Graetz, who’s compiled various assorted photos, each with a story. Click on the photos to enlarge them; Dean’s stories and captions are indented.

Photos with a Story

Photography makes my life interesting.  I photograph scenes that look interesting and then explore the story they have to tell.  Almost always, the story is far more interesting than my photograph.  Here are eight examples of photos and their story.

This is the most beautiful flower I know. It is a dry country ephemeral and its (arterial) blood-red flowers are stunning. It is much loved and cultivated under the name Sturts Desert Pea (Swainsona formosa).  Its story is from the ‘Dreamtime’ mythology of Aboriginal people.  A young women (and child) who were promised to a Warrior eloped with another man: an act punishable by death.  The vengeful jilted Warrior tracked them, and at night, killed all three.  At dawn, he was horrified to find these flowers growing where blood had been spilt.  No matter where he fled, dawn relentlessly revealed the persecuting blood flowers, displaying his crime and eventually destroying him.:

The story of this ‘cute’ image is a technological one.  The water-repellent waxy cuticle of this sturdy leaf forces the rain drops to coalesce and form slightly-flattened spherical globules.  Each globule now acts as a lens visibly enlarging details of the underlying leaf surface.  A natural microscope.  In the1670s, an amateur Dutch scientist, Leeuwenhoek, made the first microscope using simple glass beads—a globule lookalike—as lenses.  His invention significantly and irreversibly enhanced human observing power and began the critical science of microbiology.  Since before and after, with raindrops and waxy leaves, Nature continues to demonstrate its small-scale microscopes:

A near-spherical, balanced granite rock poses three questions: why round, why balanced, and how did it get there?  Roundness is a granite characteristic because it (exfoliate) weathers in large slivers (see LHS edge below) like a peeling orange.  The rock is balanced because a line through its centre of mass passes through the contact area with the base rock – thus perfectly vertical.  Because there is no hard rock connection between the balanced and its base, how did it get there?  The geological answer is a step-wise process beginning with the cooling and cracking of liquid magma, millions to billions of years ago, then chemical weathering of hard rock to less resistant material, and finally the eroding away of the softer material.  So, the balanced rock in the picture is the remnant core of very, very much larger volume of granite now removed – like the pit/stone of a peach.  It is difficult to accept this explanation because we just cannot grasp the vast expanse of time involved, but the circumstantial geological evidence is there:

A female Leaf Curling Spider (Phonognatha graeffei) hidden by the structure she built, waits for the vibrations of flying insects struggling in her web.  This one species, though common, has an uncommon set of behaviours such as selecting a leaf, curling and silking it into shape, then hauling it up from ground level and centring it into a funnelling web.  The sexes cohabit in separate locations within the sheltering leaf.  This spider’s story raises the usual two questions.  The Why question is easy – because it obviously works.  The species is sufficiently abundant to be labelled Common.  How could such a strategy come to be?  There is the usual blind faith assertion of Big G’s intelligent design.  Or the reasoned argument that because the behaviour is instinctive, not learned, then it must be heritable and therefore likely variable.  Thereafter, Nature will relentlessly reward the strategy that ‘works best’, as it has done here:

This is a difficult photo to interpret.  I was shooting straight up into the sky.  The uppermost layer is actually a shelf or ledge projecting out over the lower rock wall.  The story here is based on two features.  There are two very different rock types with a very sharp boundary between the two.  The upper layer appears to have been smeared over the lower.  The upper is a layer of rocky ‘rubbish’, materials of diverse types and sizes jumbled together.  It looks like what a bulldozer blade might push up.  The bulldozer here was a glacier.  The timing was about 720 million years ago when this part of the Australian continent was located at the Equator.  Now known as the Sturtian Glaciation, it began the speculation that planet Earth may once have been Snowball Earth.  Geological timing and ages are always thought-provoking:

This magnificently gaudy grasshopper introduces an intriguing story.  Locally known as Leichhardt’s Grasshopper (Petasida ephippigera), its flamboyant colouring says, ‘don’t eat me’.  It is not common, found only on certain plants in three areas of northern Australia.  The intriguing story is about Leichhardt, a young man seeking fame and fortune as an explorer and naturalist.  Which he did with his 1845 expedition (4000 km, 2500 m, 443 days long).  On that long walk, he encountered and described this grasshopper species noting their abundance.  Subsequently, he achieved lasting fame with his 1848 expedition to span the East to West coasts of the continent (4000 km, 2500 m), an expedition that completely disappeared without a trace.  Interestingly, so did the namesake grasshopper.  It was assumed extinct until positively identified more than a hundred years after their 1845 description of abundance.  I photographed this one in the same type of country where Leichhardt first saw them.  This was a minor thrill because I had long known the story and had speculated where in Australia’s deserts the 1848 Leichhardt party had ‘done a perish’:

Kenya (30 years ago): Day1.  Field work with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).  My local (Kikuyu) Assistants are using my soil colour charts to determine the colour classification of their skin.  I had explained to them that Melanin determined the skin colour of all humans: colour variation was in the amount and packaging.  My sermon concluded with the statement that no people were Black.  Very dark Brown: Yes.  But not the derogatory Black.  My two Assistants agreed but were quite sure that the Maasai were Black.  I knew that the Kikuyu disliked the Maasai and thought this statement reflected cultural bias, not fact.  Nobody was Black!:

Kenya: Day2.  UNEP added a young woman to the fieldwork.  Neither of us knew why.  A young American non-scientist, who was very excited to be out in the African Bush.  My concern was that bra-less may be comfortable but potentially unwise.  Come noon, universal lunchtime, with the wonderful lunch packs the tourist hotels provided.  Right on time, two Maasai appeared, both armed, announced by my retreating Assistants as “Trouble, Bwana, trouble!”  I did think then that it could turn into an SOS moment (aka Shit!  Oh!  Shit!).  However, it was peacefully resolved by international trade.  The two Maasai agreed to one photograph and a swift departure for two unopened lunch boxes, one Australian and one American.  She thought it was all thrilling.  I was both hungry and wrong.  The skin colour of one Maasai was the darkest I had ever seen.  But Black?  I plead selective breeding because the Maasai value Black as a spiritual ‘strong’ colour and that could influence mate choice.  My Kikuyu Assistants were delighted that they knew more than the Bwana:

Readers’ wildlife photos (and video)

August 20, 2026 • 8:16 am

The Jason Arday mess his died down (I hope), there’s not much news save the U.S. national debt is pushing 40 TRILLION dollars, so now is a good time for some restful and beautiful wildlife photos.

Today we present part 2 of the photos that Bruce Lyon of UC Santa Cruz posted; the photos were taken during his field work in Alaska on birds. (Part 1 is here.). There’s one video at the beginning.  Bruce’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here’s Bruce’s introduction to the last part, and I forgot to put the video in. This time it’s here:

I spent the summer researching songbirds on St Paul Island, one of the Pribilof Islands way out in the Bering Sea in Alaska. On a few different days I took a break from our study of songbirds to enjoy the fabulous seabirds. St. Paul is famous for it seabirds and a lot of naturalists visit the island to see several seabirds that are endemic to the Bering Sea. By my count, 13 species of seabirds breed on St Paul.

Here is a video to give a sense of the seabird cliffs. At some of the best cliffs one can see most of the seabird species at at single location.

Bruce added this:

The video shows Ridge Wall, a favorite with naturalists and photographers because several species are easily observed at eye level from a fairly close distance. The trumpeting noises are murres.

And today’s photos:

Thick-billed murre (Uria lomvia) with its penguin-like plumage. Murres are completely unrelated to penguins but a relative of the murres, the great auk, did give its name to the penguins. Apparently the Welsh called great auks pen gwyn and the name was given to the lookalike penguins by early south polar explorers:

Murre eggs are hypervariable for individual recognition and some individuals have particularly gorgeous eggs. This murre has the prettiest of the colors—bright turquoise:

Common murre (Uria aalge). This species lacks the white line on the beak and is browner than thick-bills. In some lighting they almost look coppery:

Common murre trying to land in a strong upblast:

We even had a dovekie (Alle alle), extremely rare for St Paul Island. These are convergent with least auklets (tiny) but come from the murre lineage in the auks, not the auklets:

Black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), a small cliff-nesting gull. When I took the kittiwake photos below it was very windy and the kittiwakes were playing in the updrafts. They would sit in one place and spin around like tops and sometimes even flip upside down. I love the bright orange mouth-lining and tongue, both of which are prominently displayed when the birds are screaming (which is most of the time).

Red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris), another Bering Sea endemic. Note the very short legs; the beak is shorter than in black-legged. 90% of the world’s population of red-legged kittiwakes breeds on nearby St George Island:

Kittiwakes use mud and wet vegetation to build their nests on the cliffs:

And kittiwakes build pretty substantial nests, plastered onto the rock so the nest does not fall off and plunge into the sea. Red-leggeds prefer sites that are tucked under overhangs:

A gathering of both species of kittiwakes on a beam in the harbor:

A glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) nest, apparently the first successful nest of this species on St Paul Island although they have bred on nearby islands:

Head shot of one of the parents. Close ups of gull heads show that gulls are rather nice birds. Gull species differ in the color of the iris and the fleshy eyering:

The aptly named and permanently embarrassed red-faced cormorant (Urile urile). Endemic to the Bering Sea:

A couple of red-faced cormorants with a nice rock arch and nesting seabirds in the background: