This small race breeding in the Commander Islands and Western Aleutians is said to be
a rare winter visitor to Japan. We only encountered this one on our pelagic trip compared to two C. c. snowi
and 11 Specatcled Guillemots. Confusion may stem from the illustration of the adult winter Snow's Guillemot in
Brazil (2019) which portrays a typical Pigeon Guillemot. Winter Snows look more like winter Spectacled, but lack
the white eyering (A. Jaramillo pers. comm.). Compare images in the OBC
gallery. Canon PowerShot SX60.References:
Brazil, M. (2018) Birds of Japan. Helm. London.
Ewins, P. J. (1993). Pigeon Guillemot (Cepphus columba), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.49
Nettleship, D.N., Boesman, P. & Garcia, E.F.J. (2019). Pigeon Guillemot (Cepphus columba). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/54064 on 21 May 2019).