Crested Auklet spotted off California coast in rare sighting

“Among the usual crowd” of birds off the California coast, one caught the eye of conservationists.

The bird, spotted on Farallon Islands in July, had a “bright orange bill and distinctive forehead crest” and brought a “serious punk rock energy to the usual seabird scene,” Point Blue Conservation Science said in an Aug. 8 Facebook post.

Conservationists said the “rare Crested Auklet (was) roosting on the water off Shubrick Point.”

Turns out, the sighting marks “the first-ever record of this species” on the islands, the group said.

Crested auklets typically “ breed in colonies on remote islands and coastlines around the Bering Sea in Alaska and winters in flocks on nearby waters,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For most of the year, the birds live at sea , “only