Over the last 175 years, common murres (pronounced murrs) have been pushed to near-extinction by greed, pollution and a warming ocean. But in a remarkable turn, the “penguins of California” are establishing new breeding colonies and laying eggs on the rocky Sonoma coast.
Despite their name, common murres are anything but ordinary. On land they waddle in dapper black-and-white plumage. Under water they dive like torpedoes. In the air, their short wings—better suited to swimming than soaring—beat furiously, whirring like wind-up toys. About the size of a football, murres spend most of the year over open water. But each Spring they return to their birthplaces to form densely packed colonies.
Most murres mate for life, but after months apart at sea, partners must find each other amid thousands of lookalikes. Rather than building nests, prospective moms and dads take turns incubating a single, pear-shaped egg on bare rock. The egg’s tapered geometry keeps it from rolling into the sea. Its speckled coloring—a unique pattern ranging from pale blue to olive-brown–helps parents recognize their own.
Murres were once the most numerous seabirds on California’s coast. In the early 1800s, more than half a million crowded the Farallon Islands, 30 miles west of San Francisco. But after the Gold Rush of 1848, the booming population’s appetite for eggs turned deadly. Commercial “eggers” raided murre colonies, snatching thousands of eggs to sell. Violent “egg wars” between armed competitors raged for years until the practice was outlawed in 1882—but not before the Farallon colony collapsed.
By the mid-20th century, new threats emerged, including widespread use of pesticides such as DDT, which thinned egg shells, and oil spills, which coated birds and poisoned their prey. Recovery seemed unlikely—until conservation groups launched a campaign of creative deception. At sites such as Devil’s Slide south of San Francisco, the Common Murre Restoration Project and Point Blue Conservation Science played murre calls from hidden speakers, scattered decoy birds on ledges and even whitewashed cliffs to mimic the appearance of guano-stained breeding sites. The ruse worked. Slowly, common murres returned.
Then “The Blob” struck. Between 2014 and 2016, this persistent marine heat wave raised ocean temperatures on the West Coast by seven degrees. The warming decimated the food web that nourished millions of seabirds. Common murres starved in staggering numbers, with an estimated death toll of 500,000 to a million. Some colonies have yet to recover.
In recent years murres have been moving into neighborhoods long dominated by larger seabirds such as Brandt’s Cormorants and Western Gulls. Volunteers with the Seabird Protection Network, part of the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, have been watching closely.
“Murre numbers have increased dramatically as they’ve established colonies on more rocks,” says Hollis Bewley, who heads the Sonoma seabirders, “There’s a theory that harassment by bald eagles further north may have driven the murres south. If so, their success is an indication of their resilience.”
Non-confrontational, savvy and stubborn, the pioneers have claimed prime real estate by arriving earlier in the year, clustering tightly together and refusing to budge. On the rocks off Bodega Head, their expansion has triggered fierce fights for new nesting sites among and between displaced cormorants and gulls. One observer compared their raucous flapping, hissing, snapping and shoving to ”a WWF smackdown.”
In early July volunteers spotted a clear sign of reproductive success: the first visible murre egg of the season, tenderly guarded by its parents (above). Once again common murres have accomplished an uncommon feat. Seabirds almost eradicated from much of California’s coast have reclaimed a piece of it. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of chicks, due in several weeks. Stay tuned for the next chapter in this small miracle of a comeback
Photos by Sylvia Hunt, ConspiringWithNature.com
