Howdy, friends,  Birds are back, I thank you all for enduring our collective nightmare of meticulous commentary someone didn’t throw together while working at the circulation desk.  Seriously though, thanks to Uve for a thoughtful header two  weeks ago.  

Our bird this week is the surfbird, and boy, is it.  The surfbird has longest and narrowest range of any North American bird.  It is found along the Pacific coast from Kodiak Island, Alaska all the way south to the Straits of Magellan, usually within a few meters of the ocean.  For those keeping score at home, that’s around 18,000 km or 11,000 mi. The exception to living in this narrow band is during the breeding season during summer in the northern hemisphere, when it can be found at altitudes of up to 1,800 m (5,910 ft) in the mountains of Alaska and the western Yukon territory in Canada.  Nevertheless, with few exceptions, the birds migrate exclusively along the coast during their annual treks.   

By the time the first surfbirds arrive in their breeding grounds in early May, high winds have cleared the area of snow.  Nests are typically on the north or west facing sides of uplands and mountains, and consist of a depression in the soil lined with lichens and local shrubs called dryas.  The birds are thought to be monogamous, and both parents will incubate the nest until the eggs hatch a little over three weeks after they are laid.  The male will take over care once the chicks hatch, and can sometimes be seen suddenly sallying forth from the nest.  The assumption here is that he is showing larger, disinterested animals where the nest is so they don’t trample it.  

Like other shore birds, males will fly over the nesting area as a form of mating display.  Wikipedia said surfbirds are “assumed” to be territorial, but other sources I have come to trust disagree, and state that the birds are highly social and fights between them are almost never observed.  

The surfbird mostly feeds on insects, including flies, beetles, butterflies and wasps.  I would assume based on where they live that they’d eat things more typically associated with the seacoast, but I guess that’s how ecological niches work.  No one else was eating the flying insects so close to the sea, and in such adverse conditions as those found where the ocean meets a rocky coast.  

The IUCN classifies the surfbird as “of least concern.”  There appear to be relatively few of them considering their gargantuan range of 30 million square kilometers, around 70,000 adult birds.  Some studies show this population dropping, but data are spotty enough that the bird doesn’t meet any criteria to be reclassified as under more threat.  

Have a good weekend, everyone.  Be kind to yourselves and others. 

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