2014 Seabird Changes

The 2012 Razorbill event is far from the only unusual seabird event of the last few years.

Recent seabird changes have included several unusual seabird records....
Until two years ago Northern Gannet, an Atlantic seabird, had never been seen in the Pacific Ocean, anywhere. Then one showed up a few miles off the San Francisco coast on the Farallon Islands.  Until this year, Fea's Petrel had never been seen in Massachusetts waters. Until this year Trinidade Petrel had never been reported in Maine. Until this year, Ancient Murrelet had never been seen in the East Coast of the USA. Until this year Tufted Puffin had not been seen along the East Coast since Audubon had one in 1831. And until late 2012 only 16 Razorbills had ever been reported in Florida waters, and then thousands appeared there in a dramatic unprecedented departure from their known history (as described in the sections below)!

Additionally, this year Central America had the first-ever Waved Albatross and the first-ever Inca Terns, plus a Gray Gull in Panama.  Thousands of starved dead seabirds are washing up on the beaches of Chile and Peru in the last few weeks, perhaps caused by an unusually strong ENSO El Nino Southern Oscillation starting to develop.

These are not the typical fluctuations in bird numbers and movements which we usually see from year-to-year and decade-to-decade, with or without El Nino. Are these very unusual seabird movements indicating something else in the larger marine ecosystem which is changing?