Scientific name: Brachyramphus brevirostris
St. Lawrence Island: Tagatuwayuk
Wales Island: Eyahazruk

Sympatric with the Marbled Murrelet in Glacier Bay, Alaska, is a similar species, the Kittlitz's Murrelet. Its short bill inspired it scientific name. The bird is a speckled slaty-black color with rusty edges to the feathers. While the feathers on the sides of the head, throat, and belly are tipped with black and buff mottling, its wings are uniformly dark. With the aid of its relatively long wings this species rises easily from the water and flies rapidly.

Kittlitz's Murrelet ranges during the breeding season from Wrangel Island in the Chukchi Sea, along the coasts of the Chukotski Peninsula, to Diomede Island in the Bering Strait, then southward along the Alaskan coasts to Glacier Bay where they are most numerous. Only rarely is the species seen in the western Pacific around the Kuril Islands. ³³⁹ Although tens of thousands of them are present in Prince William Sound in the summer months, less than a dozen nests have been positively reported. ¹⁵⁰ No estimate of the species' total numbers is available, nor have studies of the breeding behavior and biology of Kittlitz's Murrelet been conducted. What has been recorded comes largely from observations at sea, specimens collected, and the study of skins in museums; some early descriptions of the nests and eggs may be confused with other species.

Some knowledge has been gained by comparing molt conditions in museum specimens. The prenuptial or prealternate molt begins about mid-April and is completed by the end of May. ⁵⁴⁰ Birds collected before that time are still in winter or basic plumage. At about the end of August, after the young have fledged, the Kittlitz's Murrelet becomes flightless, when both wings simultaneously lose the remiges or primaries. Occasionally this prebasic molt occurs early, since molting birds have been found in late July. It is believed that these birds may have been unsuccessful breeders which because of gonadal regression molted their flight feathers. Similar early molting, apparently due to the same cause, has been seen in the Marbled Murrelet and in the Crested and Least Auklets. ⁵⁶

The egg-laying to fledging period of the Kittlitz's Murrelet in the Alaskan area extends from early June to mid-August. ^{25, 28} The first authentic record of a nest was found on 10 June 1913 on the side of Mount Pavlof near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula: an incubating adult flew from a single egg laid between patches of snow on the bare lava rock. ⁵⁹⁶ Recent reports have confirmed that this species nests inland and usually high on mountains between 230 and 1,070 meters above sea level and far as 75 kilometers from the sea. ^{150, 407}

In 1960, Ross Johnson found a nest containing an egg almost 25 kilometers northeast of Cape Thompson, Alaska, where the bird flew up almost under his feet. ⁵⁹⁷ Two days later on 28 July, he returned to the scene with two other observers, John Hines and Max Thompson. The egg had hatched and they documented man's first view of the downy young of Kittlitz's Murrelet. After several attempts they secured the adult to verify the rightful owner of the chick. The nest and egg is so similar to that of the Marbled Murrelet¹s which also may nest in similar situations that it was imperative that the adult be observed in order to be sure of the nest's ownership. ¹⁵⁰

From only fourteen nest records, we have learned that the bird uses natural rocky depressions, which may be moss or lichen covered, in which to deposit its single egg. ¹⁵⁰ Johnson's nest was about 30 meters below the summit of 450 meter high Angmakrog Mountain. The chick at Angmakrog Mountain must have been at least twenty-four hours old when found as it weighed 35.7 grams. Its coloration is described as follows: "Head near buffy yellow with black spotting; back medium gray suffused with buffy yellow, with a medial rectangular blackish area; . . throat buff yellow with black spotting becoming medium gray on the chest to pale gray on the belly; bill black with a white egg tooth; legs and feet pink in front and blackish brown on back, webs dusky brown below, pale pinkish gray above, nails black; iris dark brown."⁵⁹⁷

Edgar Bailey reported another nest containing an egg on 22 July 1972. This nest was at an elevation of about 750 meters and almost 13 kilometers from the sea on the east side of Frosty Mountain, Cold Bay, near the tip of the Alaskan Peninsular. ²⁸ The egg photographed by Edgar Bailey is a pale bluish-gray, as illustrated here. Robert Day and others, however, believe that Bailey's egg may actually be that of a Marbled Murrelet since he did not see the adult at this nest site. 150 Other eggs have been described as shades of olive-green on gray to blue-green, spotted with light and dark brown. ¹⁵⁰ Some early literature describes white eggs but although eggs vary in color, these may have been confused with eggs of other species. Spencer Sealy reports eggs to average 34.0 grams in weight or 15.2 percent of the average adult weight of 224 grams. 530 Nine eggs known average 60.0 X 37.3 mm. ¹⁵⁰ The egg discovered by Bailey hatched into a grayish downy young on 28 July. By 4 August the wings were quilled and on 15 August the chick was presumed fledged. ²⁸

The first photograph of a nest of Kittlitz's Murrelet appeared in a pamphlet entitled One Hundred Pictures of Little Known Alaskan Birds published by Bernard Hubbard, and is reproduced again in Olaus J. Murie's "Fauna of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska Peninsula." ⁴⁰⁶ This photograph, taken in the northern part of the Katmai National Monument in mid-July, shows an adult with an egg. More recently, Edward Murphy, David Roseneau and Peter Bente published a picture of a Kittlitz's Murrelet on its nest. ⁴⁰⁷ They described their experience at the nest as follows.

"The murrelet did not flush until we were within a few meters of the nest-site. It had been incubating a single egg that measured 39 x 58 mm. We departed several minutes later, and the adult returned to the nest as we withdrew. The nest-site was located about 300m above sea level on a north-facing barite talus slope, devoid of vegetation cover. The nest was simply a slight, relatively flat depression in the talus slope. Linear distance to the nearest stream was 200 to 250m. The nest-site was 75 km (straight-line distance) from the coast, indicating a minimum round-trip distance of 150 km to foraging areas for adults."

This is a remarkable energy expenditure required for feeding young and is probably the reason why the birds rear only one chick. Nothing is known of the feeding habits of this species. It is believed that it is an euphausiid feeder. However, it is not known to develop a throat pouch for transporting planktonic food to its young, and therefore most likely feeds them small fish.

The young, which apparently fledge at no more than 24 days, at half the adult weight, and incapable of flight, are presumed to scramble to a stream- Kittlitz's Murrelet nests are usually within 600 meters of a stream- and follow it down to the sea. 150 Future observations on fledging may indicate otherwise. Edward Murphy and his co-authors put it this way; ³ Sea-going in the the Kittlitz¹s Murrelet remains a mystery but apparently is an arduous task in at least some instances.² ⁴⁰⁷ (See figure 19 in the Appendix for annual molt sequence in the Kittlitz's Murrelet.)