Surfbird
Images copyright by Mark A. Chappell
The winter-plumaged surfbirds (mostly gray plumage) were photographed in Mission Bay in San Diego, California, on a rock breakwater structure in front of the Hotel Coronado near San Diego, and on a beach in Pacific Grove, California. Surfbirds molt into a richly mottled plumage in spring -- seen in the picture immediately below at left -- and fly north to breed in alpine tundra in Alaska and northwest Canada. When they return in late summer or early fall, the adult plumage is a mix of the barred breeding colors and the gray-and-white winter plumage (next row). Immatures (next row) have a gray plumage with fine white mottling on the coverts . The flocks wheeling above surf in the bottom two images are mixes of black turnstones and somewhat larger, darker surfbirds, and in the lower image, sanderlings.
