Sea Birds of the San Francisco Bay, Marin, Northern Coast + Gulf of the Farallones.
Photography ©SFBAYIMAGES.com (Buy or License Photo)
Can YOU identify this bird? For the answer, scroll to the bottom of the page.
SEABIRDS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, ADJACENT COASTAL WATERS, AND GULF OF THE FARALLONES MARINE SANCTUARY.
Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene.
In general, seabirds live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds do, but they invest a great deal of time in their young. For example, "March of the Penguins" was a movie that made famous the devout parenting instincts of Penguins. Most species nest in colonies, which can vary in size from a few dozen birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even feed on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic, coastal, or in some cases such as the albatross, spend a part of the year away from the sea entirely.
Seabirds and humans have a long history together: they have provided food to hunters, guided fishermen to fishing stocks and led sailors to land. Many species are currently threatened by human activities, and conservation efforts are under way.
Below is a list a of seabirds commonly found in and around the San Francisco Bay area. The birds in red are links to birds we have spotted with photographs and details.
BIRD CATEGORY GULLS AND TURNS
- Parasitic Jaeger
- Pomarine Jaeger
- Long-Tailed Jaeger
- South Polar Skua
- Bonaparte's Gull
- California Gull
- Herring Gull
- Glaucous-winged Gull
- Western Gull
- Heerman's gull
- Sabine'sg gull
- Black-Legged Kittiwake
- Elegant Tern
- Common Tern
- Artic Tern
- Caspian Tern
- Forster's Tern
- Rhinoceros auklet
- Common Murre
- Cassin's Auklet
- Pigeon Guillimot
- Tufted Puffin
- Ancient Murrelet
- Marbled Murrelet
- Xantus's Murrelet
- Laysan Albatross
- Black Footed Albatross
- Buller's Shearwater
- Northern Fulmar
- Pink-footed Shearwater
- Black-vented Shearwater
- Sooty Shearwater
- Flesh-Footed Shearwater
- Short-Tailed Shearwater
- Leach's Storm-Petrel
- Ashy Storm-Petrel
- Brown Pelican
- Brandt's Cormorant
- Pelegic Cormorant
- Double-Crested Cormorant
- Greater Scaup
- Surf Scoter
- Red-Breasted Merganser
- Black Oyster Catcher
- Red Phhalarope
- Red-necked Phalarope
- Great Blue Heron
- Black-crowned Night Heron
- Great Egret
- Snowy White Egret
- Common Loon or Great Northern diver (Gavia immer), This is the Loon most often seen wintering on the San Francisco Bay These are Loons that winter in California and are Occaisonnally seen in this area:
- Red-throated loon or Red-throated diver (G. stellata)
- Yellow-billed loon or White-billed diver (G. adamsii)
- Pacific loon (G. pacifica), known as black-throated divers
- Arctic loon (G. arctica), known as black-throated divers
- Western Grebe
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