Scientific name: Aethia cristatella
Alternate names: Large Auklet; Sea Quail
Aleut: Kunooyuh; Canooskie (Little Captain)
Japanese: Etorofu-umisuzume
Russian: Konyuga; Bol'shaya Konyuga
St. Lawrence Island: Sukispuk

The Crested Auklet is a very active bird, perhaps the noisiest of all the auklets on the breeding grounds where it utters loud quail-like crows and cackling sounds. At large colonies, it flies in swarms or runs, jumps and darts from one rock to another. Its direct manner of flight, size, vocalizations, color, and crest have suggested the colloquial name of "Sea Quail."

The Crested Auklet breeds along the Aleutian Islands from the Kennedy Entrance in the east to the Kuril Islands in the west. It is also found on the islands of the Bering Sea, and along the coasts of the Bering Strait and the Chukotski Peninsula. In winter, the species occasionally wanders to Japanese waters but most birds remain in seas not far from the breeding areas, where they are sometimes observed in flocks of many thousands. One such flock was encountered by crew members of the 26 meter fishing vessel Lynda, which was endangered by thousands of Crested Auklets in the Kupreonof Strait near Kodiak Island, Alaska, on the night of 16 January 1977. Confused by the ship's lights, thousands accumulated on the deck, blocking the scuppers and filling the bulwark to almost a meter in depth, preventing the deck from draining. The boat listed with this estimated extra weight of 1.5 metric tons of birds, forcing the crew to spend more than an hour shovelling them overboard. Captain M. Lynch reported that, never before, during his many years of experience at sea, had he seen so many birds in one place.¹⁵⁸ Occasional inland recoveries have been made after storms and one Crested Auklet was recorded in August 1912 in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland.^{154, 616} To the south, in the Pacific, they have been sighted off California and Mexico's Baja California.^{489, 651}

Thirty-eight colonies surveyed in Alaska are known to have at least 1.4 million Crested Auklets. Total world population is estimated at 2.5 million.⁵⁷⁰ St. Lawrence Island has the largest known number in one place: the count there reaches 517,000, of which about 372,000 are estimated to be breeding birds. In one locality on St. Lawrence Island, Jean Bédard determined the breeding density was more than eleven pairs per 200 square meters. The nesting habitat there is associated with large boulder size.⁵³ Counts made in 1987 indicated twice that of the earlier population at the St. Lawrence colony.

In body size, the Crested Auklet is more slender than the Parakeet Auklet. However, it is most readily recognized in the field by its uniformly gray belly, especially when in flight. It is also gray dorsally. The adult bird weighs between 221 and 286 grams. It has white eyes, a forwardly curved crest, and a white streak of feathers sweeping back from below the eye. The bill is yellow at the tip merging to orange-red at the base. In nuptial dress, the corners of the mouth form orange-red rosettes and additional horny plates extend the exposed mandibles backward and up toward the eyes. After the breeding season, the crest is lost temporarily and the horny plates of the bill are shed by the prebasic molt. The young bird in its first winter lacks the crest and the white feathers behind the eyes.

The Crested Auklet congregates on the sea near its breeding location early in May. When approached, the masses of birds fly over the water and drop almost in unison into the sea again. On land, precourtship displays often take place on and between the boulders of the nesting grounds. Each bird struts back and forth with neck outstretched and head twisted inquisitively, to display its forwardly projected crest. Head-bobbing, which vibrates its decurved crest, is a frequent display. On land, a single bird is often seen standing tall, barking, trumpeting, or crowing until its mate arrives. Brief bouts of billing and duetting then occur. Trumpeting or barking may be described as a single or repeated "awka, awka, awka", while the crow is a quail-like "coooh-awka-coo." Trilling variations of the sounds occur to create a cackling sequence which is the most frequent vocalization heard from groups displaying together. Cackling is often preceded by a faint squeaking sound. When calling the head is held high, the throat swells, and the breast vibrates, forcing air through the vocal apparatus. Arrival of a third bird on the ledge causes increased duetting between a pair. If this fails to persuade the intruder to flee, a fight may ensue. Such squabbles often end in the contestants tumbling together among the boulders.

Courtship takes place at sea in view of land, where tightly milling groups vigorously chatter, trumpet, and display crests to one another. Copulation also often takes place on the water. One evening in May on the Pribilofs, I watched a group of twenty Crested Auklets. They flew past the cliffs and finally settled upon the sea to mill, twist, dive, splash, chase, and cackle. It was an active affair of swimming in and out of a tight raft. Often pairs would separate from the group; one bird of the pair would then repeatedly and vigorously plough toward the other in apparent copulation attempts.

Mated birds use the same cavity year after year, indicating that the Crested Auklet shows a definite attachment to its nesting site. On St. Lawrence Island, it prefers the stable talus slope of a clifftop or boulder field, nesting freely in such a situation with the smaller Least Auklet which uses the less roomy compartments. As the season progresses the nesting crevice becomes marked with pink excrement, the color resulting from the copepods, decapods, amphipods, and other crustaceans which form the chief elements of its diet.^{58, 336}

Like the Parakeet and Least Auklets, the Crested is diurnal in its nest attentiveness, including feeding of its young. Incubation of the single white egg, which is very similar to that of the Parakeet Auklet is shared by both male and female. Egg-laying occurs in the last week of June on St. Lawrence Island and fresh eggs may be found until 12 July. The average fresh egg weight is 40.5 grams or 14 percent of the adult weight.⁵³⁰

The incubation period is thirty-five to thirty-six days and when the chick hatches its average weight is 29.3 grams or 10.2 percent of the adult body weight. The Crested Auklet chick hatches with tarsi already 50 percent of adult size. Fledging occurs at about thirty-four days of age when the chick averages 228 grams, or approximately 80 percent of the adult weight.⁵³⁰ Reproductive success on Buldir Island in the Aleutians from 1974 to 1976 was about 50 percent.³³⁶

Activity around the breeding grounds begins to wane after the middle of August and by mid-September the slopes are silent again until another spring clears the snow away. There is danger to the bird while on land because local people rely on it for food and clothing, and on some islands, eagles, falcons, gulls, foxes, rats, cats and dogs kill some.³³⁶ At sea, it is relatively safe, although, fish may take a few and severe storms occasionally kill thousands, as shown by the numbers periodically found washed ashore.