Hello Eugene and tweeters,
I been thinking all day about the tafts flapping around the bill.How a bird
or human could live with such condition? Picturing all this Whiskered
Auklets with drooping tafts is almost humorous.Now i am happy you have
figured this out about having a fish in his beak.It also would be more
believable if there where only one bird instead two.

Ruth Sullivan
godwit at worldnet.att.net
Tacoma
----- Original Message -----
From: Eugene Hunn <enhunn at Home.com>
To: TWEETERS <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2001 4:51 PM
Subject: re. Whiskered Auklet report from Cape Flattery


> The description seems less than convincing to me.
>
> "They were smaller than the Rhinoceros auklets and Tufted puffins they
were
> swimming with. The were uniformly dark, except for a white rump. Most
> interesting was a small red bill and a least 3 white tufts on each side of
> the bill. These tufts were wet, so they formed a beard of white around
> the bill. These birds dove for long periods or were easily missed as they
> often surfaced at a distance."
>
> I've never seen Whiskered Auklets but have seen Crested and Parakeets and
> the notion that the plumes might "get wet" and droop down like a beard
just
> doesn't make sense. The birds are always wet! and the plumes don't droop.
> Besides the central up-curving plumes of Whiskered and Crested Auklets are
> blackish. It sounds to me more like the observer was describing Rhinos
with
> silvery fish in their beaks.
>
> Gene Hunn
> enhunn at home.com
>