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This observation identifies a family of ancient murrelets nesting near California, suggesting unknown sites may exist along the coast.
A family of two adults and one half-grown chick of the Ancient Murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus) on the ocean at Southeast Farallon Island, California, 1 and 10 June 2019, were far south of any of the species’ known nest sites. Though Ancient Murrelets drift quickly away from their colonies once the young leave the nest at 2–3 days of age, Southeast Farallon is too far (1700 km) from Haida Gwaii for dispersal from even the southernmost known colony to be plausible. Dispersal of 1200 km from Carroll Island, Washington, a site of past and possibly current nesting, is also unlikely, suggesting the Ancient Murrelets likely nested at some yet unknown site along the coast of Oregon or northern California.
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McChesney et al. (2025) studied this question.
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