The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Snails, fish, insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located.
MacKaye Harbor
Salish Sea
Pacific Northwest
August 2013
A large flock of gulls congregated in this bay the other day. I'd seen a similar flock a few days earlier, but was on my way somewhere and couldn't stop to get a good look - an hour later on my way back that flock had departed. The flock this day was tightly bunched up, approximately a hundred, fairly close to shore. I approached them in my kayak as quietly as I could, and snapped photos at maximum zoom as I drifted toward them broadside.
It became clear they were bathing, not feeding. Lots of water getting splashed, wings spread as they lifted partly out of the water, some horseplay.
I was able to estimate the number by counting 10, seeing how big that bunch was in my field of view, and counting how many of those units. This is a unit of 10 birds.
Once I got the photos processed, I strove to identify these gulls, not an easy task since there were immature-stage gulls in the mix. I made use of two new bird books, the newest edition of
Stokes Western Region, which has many pictures for each species, including immatures, both sitting and flying. The other book is
A Guide to Birds of San Juan Island, by a resident of that island. There isn't a complete overlap between birds on San Juan and birds on Lopez, but the author notes local abundance variations.
Birdweb, an online source, is good for seasonal and statewide distribution. And of course Cornell Ornithology is a primary resource.
Turns out they were all California gulls (Larus californicus), except for a few adult Heermann's gulls (Larus heermanni). Here's an adult California gull landing in the water, identifiable by the long yellow bill with red and black spot on its lower mandible, white head, gray back, black wings with white tips, and yellow legs.
The speckled gray and brown gulls are 1st year immatures, with a light-colored bill tipped with black (could have been some juveniles too, much the same plumage coloring, but with an all-black bill). The other immatures that they might be confused with are Ring-Bills, but those are lighter than these (and there were no adult Ring-bills in this flock).
More gulls below ~
The Heermann's are plain grayish brown, with no speckling. Sorry for the fuzzy image - far even for 18x zoom - but in the background on the left is one Heermann's adult sparring with an immature California - note the speckling on the youngster. The bright orange bill is only found on the Heermann's in this area.
There were second-year California's too, much lighter in plumage. The younger gulls were less leery of a kayak drifting toward them.
The books say California gulls stop by in our quiet waters on their way from breeding grounds inland (sometimes way inland, as far as the Plains) to their wintering grounds along the open ocean. They migrate east to west rather than north to south. A few will stick around over the winter here, but August to October is the only time they are seen in large numbers. This large flock was just resting up and grooming before continuing on westward. I have not paid attention to this before now. Migration times provide valuable data for phenology, so I will have this flock's appearance on this day for comparison in the future.
As my boat drifted closer, some of the gulls started lifting off.
This is a four-foot wingspread:
Where they'd been, the water was covered with loose feathers and dusty debris.
It's still summer technically, but migrations have begun. Are you seeing any changes in bird populations where you are? Other observations of the day from your part of the country? Please add yours in the comments below.
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.