Steller was an accomplished naturalist, but his overbearing and superior manner had apparently sorely irritated Bering and his officers long before the expedition reached Kayak Island. The seamen made little effort to go ashore anywhere in Alaska and Steller was blocked from doing so as well. In addition to Kayak Island, he was able to go ashore only on Nagai Island, first with a water party on 30 August and again the next day. He noted that "all sorts of waterbirds in abundance were seen." These included two kinds of cormorants, auks, ducks, gulls, divers, pigeon guillemots (Cepphus columba), tufted puffins (Lunda cirrhata), and horned puffins (Fratercula corniculata).
Stejneger's comment on the identity of the cormorants is interesting because, based on his experience, he assumed them to be pelagic and double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax pelagicus and P. auritus). He gave no thought to red-faced cormorants (P. urile) which are now common there.
Steller noted on 6 September off Bird Island in the Shumagin Islands, that "when we were out to sea about half a mile we were especially astonished at the untold numbers of seabirds which we saw on the northern side of the island." These birds were listed as cormorants, auks, horned puffins, fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis), pigeon guillemots, black oystercatchers (Haematopus backmani), and a pied diver which Stejneger assumed was an ancient murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus).
On 15 September when Bering's vessel, the St. Peter, was south of Amukta Pass, Steller recorded observing "river gulls." The observation is not as interesting as Stejneger's comment (Golder 1925) concerning it. Stejneger stated that no true river gulls lived in the Aleutians and these must, therefore, have been another small gull with red feet. He thought they must have been the red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris), which "inhabits the Aleutian Islands from Bering Island to Sannak."
Thirty-seven years after Bering's voyage, Captain James Cook sailed into the Gulf of Alaska, arriving off Kayak Island on 11 May 1778. Cook was not accompanied by an able naturalist. His surgeon, William Anderson, did have some experience gained on earlier voyages in preparing skins and taking notes, but he had contracted tuberculosis and became so ill that even his notes ceased after 8 June, while the expedition was in Cook Inlet.
Cook was under orders to keep a careful record of everything he saw. One of the results was that he had birds collected even though he had no naturalist to do the work. Several birds were collected in Prince William Sound while Cook's vessels were at anchor in Port Etches. These included two marbled murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus—type specimens), a black oystercatcher, a surfbird (Aphriza virgata), a surf scoter (Melanitta perspicillata), and a red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator—type specimen), along with several forest birds (Stresemann 1949).
The watch journals of Cook and his officers provide some additional information. Captain Charles Clerke (Beaglehole 1974) remarked in his log on the passage out of Prince William Sound through Montague Strait on 20 May that "it had almost become tautology to mention whales and seals and innumerable sea fowl that so confoundingly kept their distance."
Between the Trinity Islands and Chirikof Island on 18 June, Cook's men collected a single tufted puffin. Later Cook passed close to the Semidi Islands and the Shumagin Islands and directly through the Sandman Reefs. Beaglehole's version of this part of the voyage makes no mention of seabirds.
There is a gap of 87 years during which there is almost no hint of published material bearing on the status of seabirds in the Gulf of Alaska. In 1865 the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition touched this area. Dall and Bannister (1869) provide us with a few scraps garnered during that expedition, primarily by Bischoff. The glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) was described as the most common species from California northward. Bischoff's collections at Kodiak indicate that the horned and tufted puffins were collected with ease. He was able also to collect an Aleutian tern (Sterna aleutica—type specimen) along with an egg.
Dall (1873) noted in 1872 that the black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) was common at Round Island and Delarof Harbor, Unga Island, in the Shumagins. The inference is that it was more common at these two places than elsewhere. The Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) was abundant in the Shumagin Islands and particularly at Range Island in Popoff Strait. Dall expressed the opinion that the horned puffin was very abundant in the Shumagins and appeared to fill the niche of the tufted puffin, which he did not see there. The only other bird which he thought to be very common was the pigeon guillemot. He did not note the common murre (Uria aalge) at all.