This is Bird Note.

The family of seabirds called Alsids is an eclectic bunch,

including the comically colorful puffins and dashingly tuxedoed mers.

The largest Alsids are about the size of a duck,

but the smallest, called the least ocklet, is no bigger than a sparrow.

Barely six inches tall, the least ocklet could fit in the palm of your hand. It has a black

back and white belly that turns a splotchy gray during the breeding season, when it also sports

attractive ornaments like white facial plumes and a little bitty upright horn on its beak. Least

auklets flock together, often by the hundreds or thousands. Short wings whirring, the miniature

ulcids look like swarms of feathered bumblebees.

They dive below the ocean's surface to gobble up teeny crustaceans.

In the summer, leased ocklets form massive breeding colonies on rocky islands of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea.

In August, when the young birds are ready to take their first flight,

millions of ocklets scattered to the winds across the northern seas.

But scientists still don't know precisely where least ocklets ride the winter waves

till spring. A big mystery for a tiny bird. For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.