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Marbled Murrelets

Watch a video!

Tom Kollasch, Willapa Program Director for the Conservancy, manages the Ellsworth Creek Preserve. Hear Tom explain why Ellsworth Creek provides critical habitat for the marbled murrelet.

Learn about Ellsworth Creek

Bold restoration plans protect thousands of acres of coastal forests and miles of salmon streams. Find out more about the enchanting Ellsworth Creek Preserve.

More Marbled Murrelets

Want to learn more about these lovely little birds? Find more fun facts right here.

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Ellsworth Creek

Until recently, the nesting habits of the marbled murrelet were a mystery. These diving seabirds were sighted at sea feeding, but they couldn’t be found nesting on rocky islands like their cousins the puffins and murres.

What Makes the Marbled Murrelet Special

We know now that this robin-sized bird flies up to 50 miles inland to nest in the wide, mossy branches of big old trees. It lays a single egg, more pointed at one end than the other, so that it will just roll in a circle and not fall out of its shallow nest high in the tree.

Marbled murrelets generally nest from mid-April to September. The chick is helpless at hatching, so the adults fly to the ocean and return with food for it, one fish at a time. When the young bird is ready to fly, after 28 days, biologists believe it flies directly to the sea on leaving the nest.

Why Big Trees Are Important

Conservation of the marbled murrelet begins with the protection of its nesting habitat. The old-growth forests that the marbled murrelets nest in have largely been logged and replaced with short-rotation commercial stands that never develop the height, complexity and branch size that murrelets require. Can we help create more habitat for these threatened birds?

The forest at the Conservancy’s Ellsworth Creek Preserve, adjacent to the Willapa Bay National Wildlife Refuge, includes some remnant stands of old growth, and some trees that are 70 to 80 years old, but most of the forest is from five to 40 years old. The Conservancy is looking for ways to introduce complexity into the forest and create some of the characteristics of old-growth forests in the younger trees.

The Conservancy’s preserve manager, Tom Kollasch, learned to survey for marbled murrelets when he worked for the Willapa Bay Refuge. Early one morning, he spotted two birds circling and circling around two big old cedars, surrounded by dense stands of younger trees. The birds could not find a clear path through the surrounding youngsters into the giants, where they might find the nesting sites they need. This sight prompted Kollasch to ask if opening up flightways through some of the younger forest could create more nesting habitat for the murrelets. These questions ultimately led to his work in the Ellsworth Creek Preserve.

 

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Harley Soltes (Ellsworth Creek Preserve; Photo © Phil Green/TNC (marbled murrlets on the water); Photo © Robin Stanton/TNC (Tom Kollasch at Ellsworth Creek Preserve).