THE CHANGING SEASONS: THINK PINK 
Figure 13. A stunning 136 Cook's Petrels, including this bird, were counted during a pelagic trip out of Santa Barbara, California 25 
July 2009, all in Santa Barbara and Ventura County waters west of the Channel Islands. Photograph byMattSadowski. 
tion might seem to indicate a va- 
grant, but Wayne Petersen writes in 
his “SA” box that geolocation devices 
placed on Bermuda Petrels indicate 
that this bird might well have been 
foraging in a typical spot! Perhaps 
even more unusual, a 
Black-capped Petrel visited 
a massive group of foraging 
shearwaters off Race Point 
on Cape Cod, Massachu- 
setts 23 June — the species 
is virtually unrecorded 
from land in North Ameri- 
ca out of the context of a 
hurricane or tropical storm. 
Also in the Northeast, 
Maine recorded a Black- 
browed Albatross, the hrst 
successful United States 
fledging of a Manx Shearwater, and a 
nesting attempt of Common 
Murre — the first in coastal Atlantic 
waters for over 100 years. Farther 
south. Brown Boobies made their 
mark in Maryland (its first) and Vir- 
ginia, and Maryland tallied its second 
Yellow-nosed Albatross. 
And not all records of seabirds 
come from the sea. New Mexico be- 
came the latest state to add Long- 
billed Murrelet to its list, found 
dead in a salt lake 12 July (Figure 
14). I puzzled over this record and 
the bimodal pattern of Long-billed 
Murrelet vagrancy, but 1 was fortu- 
Figure 14. Far from home, this Long-billed Murrelet was found dead in a salt 
lake in the Laguna Grande area of Eddy County, Mew Mexico on 12 July 2009. 
Records from inshore waters of northern California are also from this time of 
year, as are almost all records from the interior West— quite in contrast to 
most records from the Great Lakes and East, which are mostly from late Octo- 
ber through December. Photograph by Samantha R. Uhrig. 
noted two Black-capped Petrels (and two more 
unidentified petrels) about 260 kilometers east 
of the Virginia capes 1 June, a Bermuda Petrel 
about 260 kilometers east-northeast of Cape 
Hatteras, North Carolina 6 June, and a Black- 
capped just 130 kilometers off Virginia 6 June. 
While none of these records lacks precedent, 
true Gulf Stream waters off Virginia generally 
lie beyond the reach of birding trips, so that 
there are very few records of Pterodroma at sea 
at this latitude. Further records of Bermuda Pe- 
trel this summer came from waters just off 
Hatteras, North Carolina (now a regular “spot” 
for the species) on 27 June and from New Eng- 
land pelagic waters on the marine boundary 
with Canada the following day. The latter loca- 
nate in having several veteran regional edi- 
tors set me straight. Steve Mlodinow’s (1997) 
article on the species indicates that eight in- 
terior western records (four from California, 
two from Wyoming, one each from Alaska 
and Colorado) fall squarely in the late sum- 
mer period between 23 July and 30 August; a 
Colorado record from Chatfield Lake 2 No- 
vember 1996 matches the pattern in the Mid- 
west and East. But why the stark difference 
between western and eastern records? New 
Mexico’s Regional Editor, Sandy Williams, of- 
fers a remarkably clear explanation: 
The records from the Pacific coast and the 
interior West are likely related to the Aleu- 
tian Low weather pattern during the time 
these birds are migrating in late summer, 
pushing some of them eastward to the Pa- 
cific coast as well as inland. As I understand 
it, this phenomenon has gotten stronger in 
recent years, is related to El Nino/Southern 
Oscillation, and so can be linked to climate 
change since the late 1970s (about when 
most North American records began). 
The Long-billed Murrelet records from 
eastern North America, however, are later 
in the year, generally late fall and winter. 
Figure 15. Although Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a fairly common summer resident 
in central Texas, this melanistic individual was totally unexpected at Liberty 
Hill, Travis County 20 July 2009. Melanism in the genus appears to be very rare 
and not previously reported in Texas. Photograph by BertMarwm. 
VOLUME 63 (2009) 
NUMBER 4 
559 
