Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet

Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet

celebrates the fascinating world of an endangered seabird that

depends on the contested old-growth forests of the Pacific

Northwest for its survival.

"This chunky little seabird stole my heart." So confesses Maria

Mudd Ruth, a veteran nature writer perfectly happy to be a

generalist before getting swept up in the strange story of the

marbled murrelet. This curiosity of nature, which flies like a little

brown bullet at up to 100 miles an hour and lives most of its life

offshore, is seen onland only during breeding season, when each

female lays a single egg high on a mossy tree limb in the ancient

coastal forest.