All the recent sightings of Bonaparte’s gulls mentioned in Daily Buckets lately reminded me I never reported on my own lucky sightings back in November. So today’s Bucket will add to observations by BrownsBay, Jeff Graham, WordsandBirds down in Edmonds, bluetownship and RonK up in Bellingham, Clickadee in SE Michigan, CaptBLI in Mississippi and nookular in New York. Hope everyone else isn’t sick of Bonaparte’s gulls! They are pretty special though, which you can tell by our excitement, so welcome to the party.
Usually Bonaparte’s form sizable flocks, feeding together. Sometimes they’ll mix with other birds and animals in what sure looks like a party but which of course is the serious business of fueling up in a cold marine environment. I can add to our collective Bonaparte’s story with a couple of multispecies feeding incidents in my neighborhood.
My first sighting this winter was just a few days after returning from our road trip in early November, when I was back to taking my walks down at the local bay. I was actually watching a seal cruise by, who I discovered to my great relief to be Friendly Seal (since there was a seal carcass well past identification on the neighboring beach, and I can’t help but worry about FS).
She swam out toward the headland and all of a sudden a mass of gulls and cormorants showed up there, feasting on a baitball. I didn’t notice until I looked at my photos later but there were at least four seals driving the small forage fish toward the surface. The seals vacuumed them up from below, the cormorants dived to catch them, and the gulls swooped from above. The gulls were Bonaparte’s! Much closer to shore than I usually see them.
Some pics and video:
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Eventually the seals split up and swam off, after which the feeding frenzy abated. One seal (possibly FS, too far to tell) drove forage fish against the rocks along the cliff and you can see in the video below how a Glaucous-winged gull tracked its underwater movements and followed it, as did some Bonaparte’s.
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Once the fish had dispersed, a few Bonaparte’s rested on the surface near the beach for a while and Friendly Seal circled back into the bay.
A few days later, Mr O and I were hosting a friend from the city, took him out to a favorite walking spot on the west side of the island. This county park is next to a very deep narrow channel where there’s a ripping current when the tide is flowing. When we there that day the current wasn’t too strong but the wind blowing hard, and the water was pretty rough with swells and wind chop. At least it was sunny! At one point I saw a baitball form in the channel. Gulls came flying in from various directions, diving for the fish. I assumed they were our usual Glaucous-winged, and in fact when I looked at my pics later most of them were, but a few Bonaparte’s got in on the action too. There might have been a few California and Mew gulls too. The baitball was a ways out and it was hard holding the camera steady in the wind!
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It’s a good sign seeing baitballs because it means those small fish (herring, sand lance, surf smelt) must be fairly abundant, at least right here right now. These forage fish are critical to the survival of bigger fish, marine birds and marine mammals in the Salish Sea.
Direct measures of forage fish abundance trends are few except for herring since those are caught commercially and WDFW monitors populations for catch limits. Their numbers vary by year and locale. Sand lance and surf smelt are evidently difficult to measure directly. Indirect analyses suggest their abundance is declining because, all other factors being equal, birds that rely primarily on forage fish (like Common murres, Marbled murrelets, Tufted puffins, Western grebes) have been declining in the Salish Sea far more dramatically than birds that primarily hunt larger fish (like Pigeon guillemots, all the mergansers, cormorants). (Assessing ecological correlates of marine bird declines to inform marine conservation).
Bonaparte’s gulls also feed largely on forage fish in winter, but their range and numbers are vast. If they can’t find a good food supply in the Salish Sea, they will spend their winters elsewhere. We’d all sure miss their elegant delicate aerial dances.
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Temps in the 30s and dropping fast. By tonight in the teens for the first time this winter and isn’t forecast to get above freezing until next week. Moderately breezy out of the north in the Pacific Northwest islands today. Getting things set up for the freeze, like a bucket heater plugged in to keep some water thawed for birdies.
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