Razorbills invade Florida
December 20, 2012
Razorbill at Wellfleet Harbor, Cape Cod, MA, Dec 2011. Photo by Ryan Schain.
Razorbill is an alcid of cold North Atlantic waters and rarely strays south of Cape Hatteras, NC, in the United States. The state of Florida previously had 14 records of this species, so last week when multiple Razorbills started appearing in Florida—including flocks of more than 20 birds—it was clear that something very odd was going on. This invasion has continued to strengthen, with some Razorbills turning up as far south as Miami and the Florida Keys, and some remarkable birds apparently rounding the tip of the peninsula and appearing along the Gulf coast! Some other species more typical of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic are also turning up, including Black Scoters, Dovekie, and even Thick-billed Murre, and this invasion of the Southeast is helping to lend perspective to odd patterns in coastal southern New England. Although alcids are sometimes driven by storms to unusual places, large-scale invasions like this are more typically driven by food shortages in their normal range. Below we discuss this invasion in more depth and provide ideas to help explain this unprecedented event. Additional discussion is also available at Birdcast.
Alcids (or auks) fill a similar ecological niche in the northern hemisphere as penguins do in the southern hemisphere, except alcids can fly -- amd cam fly long distances.
2012 Razorbill invasion
