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Rhinoceros Auklet

Chris Packham presents the rhinoceros auklet found near the North American western seaboard.

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Chris Packham presents the rhinoceros auklet found around the North American western seaboard. Rhinoceros auklets are auks. They look very different to their relatives the puffins or guillemots. They're dark grey-ish brown birds, and in the breeding season both male and female have flowing white plumes above their eyes and behind their orange bills. It is the white vertical plate at the base of its bill which has inspired the birds' common names of "horn-billed puffins" or "unicorn puffins". This horn is only grown in the breeding season; the birds shed it in autumn when they head out to sea. Rhinoceros auklets in burrows or cavities in grassy places or on forest floors: most colonies are small, but some contain a hundred thousand birds which produce a soothing chorus of mooing and grunting sounds, strange to hear in the blackness of a coastal wood.

Producer : Andrew Dawes

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1 minute

Last on

Fri 17 Nov 2023 05:58

Rhinoceros auklet (Cerorhinca monocerata)

Webpage image courtesy of Gerrit Vyn / naturepl.com

NPL Ref Β© Gerrit Vyn / naturepl.com

Two recordings of rhinoceros auklet by Thomas G Sander / Ref: ML110904 & ML110911

This programme contains two wildtrack recording of the rhinoceros auklet kindly provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: both tracks were recorded by Thomas G Sander as follows...

- Recorded 26 Jul 1986, at Rabbit Cave, SE Farallon Islands, California, USA

- RecordedΜύ27 Jul 1986, at Rabbit Cave, SE Farallon Islands, California, USA

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Broadcasts

  • Tue 18 Nov 2014 05:58
  • Mon 23 Nov 2015 05:58
  • Sun 29 Nov 2015 08:58
  • Wed 17 Jun 2020 05:58
  • Sun 11 Jul 2021 08:58
  • Fri 26 May 2023 05:58
  • Fri 17 Nov 2023 05:58

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