Fig. 2. Relative numbers of marine birds at colonies in different localities, without regard to species composition or breeding status.
Fig. 3. Location of known breeding populations of some marine bird species without regard to size of population.
Chukchi Sea
The largest colonies of seabirds in the Chukchi Sea are those on Little Diomede Island, Cape Lisburne, Cape Thompson, and Fairway Rock. Smaller colonies are in Kotzebue Sound along the northern base of the Seward Peninsula. These colonies are largely dominated by thick-billed and common murres and black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) and on the islands in the Bering Strait also the crested, least, and parakeet auklets. Horned puffins, tufted puffins (Lunda cirrhata), pelagic cormorants (Phalacrocorax pelagicus), and glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus) make up the remaining majority. For the whole area there are probably fewer than a hundred birds each of black guillemots and pigeon guillemots (Cepphus columba) occupying colonies. Dovekies (Alle alle) are occasionally sighted in this area, but only as stragglers from their normal range.
Part of the mystery surrounding the nesting location of Kittlitz's murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris) was solved when Thompson et al. (1966) discovered a downy chick in the Kukpuk River drainage nearly 45 km by river from salt water. Other nesting sites of the Kittlitz's murrelets in this region were reported for Wales Mountain (Ford 1936; Bailey 1943, 1948) and the Cold Bay area (Bailey 1973) (Fig. 3).
Only the colonies at Cape Thompson have been censused systematically throughout a breeding season. During one of three years of varying census efforts, Swartz (1966) estimated that about 400,000 birds of nine species occupied the cliffs. Whereas the Cape Thompson colonies received considerable attention because of Swartz's efforts, the colonies that extend along nearly 35 km of headlands southward from, but mainly at, Cape Lisburne have received little if any attention by either early or recent ornithologists in the Arctic, even though they support perhaps twice the number of birds. Also perplexing is why Chamisso and Puffin islands with their several thousand nesting horned puffins and lesser numbers of other seabirds were designated as the Chamisso National Wildlife Refuge in the early 1900's when none of the many larger and more species-diverse colonies in the area received comparable recognition by and protection through refuge designation.