[cobirds] Murrelet Vagrancy Patterns

Greetings All,

The occurrence (up to 15 years or so ago) of Long-billed and Ancient Murrelets with weather patterns have been carefully studied:

Dr. Steven Feldstein of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center reviewed interior and eastern Long-billed Murrelet sightings to search for a connection between these records and atmospheric conditions. No such correlation was sought for coastal records because of the biases in these records. Feldstein found that the majority of mid-fall to mid-winter perdix records have been associated with storms that occurred off the east coast of Asia between Japan and the Kamchatka Peninsula within two to three days of each record. This correlation seems quite plausible and may well be correct, but it did not meet statistical significance (p>.05). A similar finding exists for Ancient Murrelets, a species in which inland records seem to be related, at least in part, to fall storms moving inland from the Gulf of Alaska (Munyer 1965, Verbeek 1966, Sealy and Carter 1980). Feldstein also discovered that the pattern of mid-tropospheric atmospheric circulation (approximately five kilometers above the surface) is significantly correlated (p<.05) with inland and eastern perdix records during the mid-fall to mid-winter period. These records of Long-billed Murrelets are much more likely to occur when the mid-tropospheric circulation tracks from the Gulf of Alaska and North Pacific into the Alaskan interior.

         

It seems that most inland Long-billed Murrelets (aka, perdix) and Ancient Murrelets are pushed east of the Rockies in Alaska, not farther south, so weather in WA would be correlated only as a surrogate marker for storms occurring (or that had recently occurred) farther north.

From Baja California

Steve Mlodinow

San Jose del Cabo, BCS

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