Razorbill
Alca torda

f11 @ 1/200s, ISO:800, Nikon D3S w 500mm and 1.7X teleconverter


"Razorbill," Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Razorbills are distributed across the North Atlantic; the world population of razorbills is estimated to be at less than 1,000,000 breeding pairs, making them among the rarest auks in the world (Chapdelaine et al. 2001). Approximately half of the breeding pairs occur in Iceland. Razorbills thrive at water surface temperatures below 15 °C. They are often seen with other larger auks, such as the thick-billed murre and common murre. However, unlike other auks, they commonly move into larger estuaries with lower salinity levels to feed. These birds are distributed across sub-arctic and boreal waters of the Atlantic. Their breeding habitat is islands, rocky shores, and cliffs on northern Atlantic coasts, in eastern North America as far south as Maine, and in western Europe from northwestern Russia to northern France. North American birds migrate offshore and south, ranging from the Labrador Sea south to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to New England.
Cape Cod Canal, Sandwich, Massachusetts
 
12/06/2020