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    Synthliboramphus – Murrelets

    Like penguins, they use their wings to fly underwater

    Comprises a small but fascinating group of seabirds known commonly as murrelets, tiny members of the auk family that spend most of their lives at sea around the North Pacific. There are five living species in the genus — ancient murrelet, Japanese murrelet, Scripps’s murrelet, Guadalupe murrelet, and Craveri’s murrelet — each adapted in its own way to life on rough seas, remote islands, and midnight-dark nest sites.

    What unites these birds is their lifestyle: compact, dark-backed and white-bellied bodies built for diving and swimming, wings adapted for underwater “flight,” and a stubborn loyalty to remote sea islets and small coastal colonies for breeding. Most species nest in hidden crevices — rocky cracks, under boulders, or among tree roots — often far from human eyes. What’s especially unusual among birds: as soon as the chicks hatch from their eggs, the family abandons the nest and jumps straight into the sea. The parents call to the chicks from offshore, and the young swim out in the dark to join them, learning to feed and survive in pelagic waters almost from day one.

    In the water, murrelets live fast and light. They dive with their wings, chasing tiny fish, larval fish, krill, and plankton deep beneath the waves, sometimes hunting in tight groups during rich upwelling periods. Their feeding habits have them tuned to the rhythm of the sea — they’re often found hundreds of kilometers offshore, cruising through cold currents, following nutrient-rich waters that harbor the prey they need.

    Migration and dispersal patterns vary among the species. Some, like the ancient murrelet, roam across vast stretches of the North Pacific, while others remain more tightly bound to subtropical or temperate waters near their breeding islets. Their global population is patchy: some species are reasonably abundant, but others — especially those with small island-only ranges like the Japanese, Scripps’s, Guadalupe or Craveri’s murrelets — are vulnerable to disturbances such as introduced predators, oil spills, or habitat degradation.