FIRST RECORD OF THE BRIDLED MORPH OF THE COMMON MURRE IN THE PACIFIC

Abstract

The Common Murre (Uria aalge) is one of the most numerous marine birds in the Northern Hemisphere (Ainley et al. 2002), widely distributed in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the Atlantic, breeding colonies range from eastern Canada to Iceland, the British Isles, and Norway. In the Pacific, the species breeds in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, and down the west coast of North America into California (Gaston et al. 1998). Northern populations tend to move south in the winter and are generally restricted to waters of the continental shelf (Gaston et al. 1998).