These adorable little birds live very interesting lives. Not a birder by any means, these small penguin-like sea birds have managed to capture my attention. They live the majority of their lives on the water, only coming on land to lay eggs. They do not build a nest, instead they find a safe enclave on the rocky cliff sides and incubate the egg between their feet.

They are able to fly with some agility, but diving is where these birds excel. They look like graceful slim line torpedoes in the water and they have been recorded plummeting to depths of more than 600 feet. Often times they can be spotted in huge groups on the water (rafts). There can be more than 2,000 murres floating in the middle of the ocean. It’s a pretty amazing sight to watch hundreds of murres dive under the water simultaneously.

These little birds are pretty bad ass.