Spectacled guillemot

The spectacled guillemot or sooty guillemot (Cepphus carbo) is a seabird in the auk family.

Spectacled guillemot
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Alcidae
Genus: Cepphus
Species:
C. carbo
Binomial name
Cepphus carbo
Pallas, 1811

Description

This species is about 38 cm (15 in) with red legs, black bill, and a blackish iris.

The breeding adult spectacled guillemot is distinctive, mostly plumaged dull sooty-black except for conspicuous white "spectacles" on the face

In adult non-breeding plumage, the underparts are white, uniformly tipped very pale grey-brown. Transitional birds are like breeding adults, except the underparts are scaled with white.

Sexes are alike, but juveniles are separable from adults. There are no subspecies.

Range

The spectacled guillemot's range is restricted to the northwestern Pacific Ocean: throughout the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kuril Islands in Russia and on the northern island of Hokkaidō in Japan. Its range overlaps with that of the closely related pigeon guillemot, though it extends further north.[2]

References
  1. BirdLife International (2012). "Cepphus carbo". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. (in Russian) Artyukhin Yu.B. and V.N. Burkanov (1999). Sea birds and Mammals of the Russian Far East: A Field Guide, Moscow: АSТ Publishing – 215 p.
  • Harrison, Peter (1991). Seabirds An Identification Guide ISBN 0-395-60291-2
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