The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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July 17, 2021
Salish Sea, PacificNorthwest
In the Salish Sea it’s peak seal pupping season and we saw a few pairs of “a big one and a little one” (as we call them) on our latest excursion out to Whale Rocks last weekend. It’s also a very busy time for gulls now too, with our local Glaucous-wingeds congregated on outer rocks for breeding and some of our temporary gulls arriving for their seasons in these waters.
We saw four different baitballs in the hour we were out. A baitball is a dense school of forage fish driven to the surface by diving birds or bigger fish below. Gulls can’t dive more than a foot into the water so these ephemeral masses of fish are always an attraction.
Heermann’s gulls have arrived from their breeding grounds in the Sea of Cortez. Most still have their breeding plumage, a white head. By August they will molt into mostly charcoal grey plumage. It’s good to see some juveniles this year; they’ve been sparse in previous years.
A flock perched on a rock saw the baitball activity and flew over to join the scrum. Gulls are constantly on the lookout for baitballs, which form and dissolve quickly, moving to new locations.
On the periphery of baitballs you’ll see alcids and cormorants. They dive under the fish and snag them from below while the gulls capture them from above. It’s tough being a herring! More on herring and other forage fish here: Forage fish in Puget Sound.
Out at Whale rocks there were GWs, Heermann’s and Mew gulls. Mews are small delicate gulls and actually spend most of the year in our area, only leaving to breed. While the Heermann’s will depart in October, the Mews will stick around until next April or May. California gulls will come through any day now for a couple of months, transiting from the interior out to the open coast. Other gulls I might see are Bonaparte’s, who tend to congregate out on open water rather than near shore. In August and September it’s not unusual to see many thousands of gulls in view over the water.
There were quite a few seals hauled out on Whale Rocks too. Not many sealions around right now — most have not returned from their breeding colonies on the coast, so the seals have possession of the Rocks.
Most of the seal mom and pup pairs we saw were hauled out on rocks and islands. These were on north Whale rock:
I took a distant photo of a Great Blue heron on kelp and looking at the photo later I noticed another pair of “a big one and a little one”.
Then there’s the pair we saw swimming by out in the open. Seal pups start swimming as soon as they’re born. This little one was staying close to mom. If a pup gets too tired to swim, it can ride on her back, but mom has a lot of teaching to do in the short interval it’s with her, no “babying”. Seal pups have only 6 weeks or so with mom, and after that they are on their own to find food and stay safe.
Their primary predators are mammal-hunting orcas, whose numbers increased in local waters as the Harbor seal population rebounded. Hunting of both was prohibited by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Commercial fishermen complain bitterly about competition from seals and sealions but researchers say populations of these pinnipeds have increased only in comparison to an artificially low level. Until 1972 there was a bounty program and pinniped numbers plummeted. Counts indicate Harbor seal numbers leveled off by the 1990s at what researchers say is carrying capacity.
Once weaned, youngster seals tend to form packs of “weaners” from September on.
Besides fishing and standing around on the rocks, gulls bathe and groom.
But priority #1 is finding food. Another baitball, this one out in a tide race of choppy water.
A good trip out on the water. Lots of summer wildlife activity.
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Sunny and cool in the PNW islands. 60s. Breezy today. On land? dry dry dry: no precipitation since June 13.
WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA TODAY?