Remember that gull we rescued last week? After my husband took it to Native Animal Rescue here in Santa Cruz it was transferred up to International Bird Rescue‘s San Francisco Bay Area center in Fairfield. I e-mailed and asked how the gull was doing and whether I’d be able to witness its release back to the ocean. Yesterday I received this response:
Hi Allison,
This is Cheryl Reynolds, the Volunteer Coordinator for Bird Rescue. Thank you so much for rescuing the juvenile Western Gull and getting him into care at Native Animal Rescue. Hooks and fishing line can cause severe injuries but fortunately this guy is doing okay at this time. He/she had surgery yesterday to repair some of the damage the line caused to his leg and is being treated with antibiotics. He’s not totally out of the woods yet but luckily gulls are pretty tough! I’m giving you his case number here at Bird Rescue #17-1887 but I will be happy to follow up with you on his progress.
To answer your other questions.. We don’t have a timeline yet on release, it depends on how he progresses. We don’t usually send the birds back to Santa Cruz, we have so many young gulls we like to release as a group and in an appropriate location locally.
If you would like to contribute to this birds care please go to our website at https://www.bird-rescue.org/. You can also sign up to receive our Photo of the Week and patient updates and also find us on Facebook.
Thanks again for caring for this birds welfare.
Kind regards,
Cheryl
We hadn’t realized that the fishing line wrapped around the bird’s leg had caused damage that would require surgery. This makes me doubly glad that we were able to rescue it from the surface of Monterey Bay before the injuries became more severe. It sounds like the prognosis is good for this juvenile western gull, and I hope it and several of its cohort can be returned to the skies and sea very soon.
This is the time of year when whales visit Monterey Bay and often come quite close to shore. Humpbacks, in particular, are commonly seen from beaches in the fall. Earlier in the summer they are out over the Monterey Canyon feeding on krill. In the late summer and early fall they switch to feeding on anchovies, which school in shallower water over the continental shelf. Last week they were putting on a show, to the delight of whale watchers who pay for whale watching trips out of Moss Landing and Santa Cruz.
Yesterday evening my husband and I borrowed a friend’s little boat and went out looking for whales. A humpback had been seen from the beach around the cement ship at Seacliff State Beach, lunge-feeding and breaching. Even the Monterey Bay is a big body of water, and I’d rated our chance of finding a whale at about 50%. We did eventually find one swimming parallel to the shore. And I have pictures to prove it!
The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 prohibits humans from approaching any marine mammals, so we kept our distance. The whale undoubtedly knew we were there and it did get a little closer than this, right around the time that we noticed a flock of ~25 pelicans fly overhead and start circling over an area a short distance away. It was starting to get dark and we had to turn around and head back, and on our way we ended up where the pelicans were hanging out.
As we approached we could see a bird flapping about on the surface of the water, but unable to get airborne. It didn’t take long for us to see that it was somehow tied up with a dead common murre and a piece of kelp. We were able to pull the kelp toward the boat and grab the live bird. It appeared to be a juvenile gull.
It had a hook in its right nostril and a hook in each foot. The hook in its beak was attached to line that went around its body, making the bird unable to raise its head. Fortunately Alex was able to cut the line while I held the bird. We didn’t have the tools to try removing the hooks, so we decided to head back in. We wrapped the bird loosely in a towel to keep it from flailing around and held onto it for the long, wet ride back to the harbor.
When we back on land I called the Marine Mammal Center because: (a) I had the number programmed into my phone; and (b) I knew they’d have a live person to answer the phone, who would be able to tell me who to call about this bird. The person I talked to transferred me to Pacific Wildlife Care in Morro Bay. The recorded message told me to place the bird in a box or pet carrier on a towel and leave it in a warm, dark place until we could bring it in the morning. We weren’t about to make a 2.5-hr drive to Morro Bay, but fortunately there is an organization right here in Santa Cruz that we’ve taken animals to before: Native Animal Rescue. We got home, dug out the kitty carrier, and tucked the bird in for the night. The only warm place we could think of that the cats couldn’t get to was the pantry, so the bird spent the night there.
I had a school meeting this morning, so Alex took the bird to Native Animal Rescue. The woman who met him said the bird was a juvenile western gull (Larus occidentalis)–another WEGU. She took the bird out, wrapped it in a towel, and calmed it by simulating a hood on its head.
The woman pulled the hook out of the nostril pretty easily. To remove the hooks from the feet she had to first cut the barbs and then pull them back out. Alex said the whole thing took about 5 minutes. The bird seems otherwise uninjured. The folks at Native Animal Rescue will keep an eye on it for a few days and then release it back to the wild. I think I’ll give them a call tomorrow and see if we can be there when the bird is released.
Update Sunday 20 August: We called Native Animal Rescue this morning and were told that the bird had been transferred to a wildlife care facility up in Fairfield. All of the seabirds that come into Native Animal Rescue get sent up there. So we won’t get to see “our” gull be released back into the wild.
Earlier this week I accidentally came upon a baby bird. I was on my way out to the cliff at the marine lab to dispose of a corpse (a fish that died of natural causes) when I noticed a western gull perched on the fence railing and allowing me to get unusually close. It was wary, though, and very alert. When I stopped to listen and watch for a while I heard a high-pitched “cheep-cheep-cheep” coming from beyond the shrubs on the other side of the fence. To get to the point where I could throw the dead fish off the cliff I had to pass closer than I wanted to the chick, which I could then see standing among the ground cover.
The western gull (Larus occidentalis), or WEGU in birders’ parlance, is a California Current endemic species. It is a bird of the Pacific coast of North America, and is rarely found more than a few miles inland. So if you don’t live right on the coast and have problems with gulls in landfills or parks, you cannot pin the blame on a WEGU. Western gulls are present year-round, feeding on whatever they can get. Like many gulls they are quite efficient scavengers and have a varied diet that often includes human refuse. They have become quite adapted to human presence, and have taken advantage of the fact that we tend to leave our garbage all over the place.
Yesterday the chick was in the same area, only a little more visible from directly above. I’d seen as many as five adults hanging around the chick, with no idea who the actual parents are. The chick is big and feathered enough to thermoregulate on its own but is still entirely dependent on its parents (and other cooperative adults) for food.
Being a gull, it is very vocal. It doesn’t sound like a gull, though. The calls sound like they’re coming from a much smaller bird. It cheeped continuously during the 20 minutes or so I was watching it, even with its parents standing right next to it. When this chick fledges, the only direction it can go is out over the water. Unless it can steer its flight well enough to land on one of the intertidal benches to the left of its present location, it’ll end up in the water. I imagine it will be able to swim just fine, but the next thing it will have to learn is how to get up in the air from the water.
Western gulls do not migrate and, garbage notwithstanding, depend on the California Current for most of their food. And while it may seem that there are gulls all over the place with plenty to burn, the WEGU’s restricted range makes this species vulnerable to perturbations in the ecology of the coastal ocean. Not only might their food supply be interrupted as prey species’ distributions change, but their nesting sites on cliffs may be inundated as sea level rises due to climate change.
Gulls have a reputation as trash birds, but the adult WEGU really is beautiful. Their large-ish body size, pure white head and front, and pink legs/feet are pretty distinctive. WEGUs are the only gulls that I feel at all comfortable IDing in the field, and that’s only when the birds are in adult plumage. This species, and many other gull species, takes four years to attain the adult coloration. The juveniles of many species all look very similar, which makes field identification a hazardous exercise. To make things even more complicated, western gulls are known to hybridize with the glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens); fortunately for California birders, the hybridization zone is further north in Washington State.
Seabirds of all types depend on their feathers for insulation. Small-bodied endotherms like birds have an unfavorable surface area:volume ratio and would be unable to maintain their body temperature in cold water if they didn’t have insulation. One of the adaptations that enables a life in cold water is a preen gland near the base of the tail. This gland secretes an oily substance that the bird spreads over its feathers as a waterproof coating, very effectively shielding the body from the cold water. Feathers themselves have water-shedding properties of their own, but augmenting this feature with oil is sheer genius. You’ve heard the phrase “like water off a duck’s back”? We can say that because ducks and other water fowl have preen glands.
Feathers must be clean and lie properly for a bird to fly and thermoregulate, and birds at rest spend a lot of time grooming. All birds preen, but for aquatic birds this activity is especially crucial. Watching a bird preen is like watching a cat take a bath: the sequence of actions appears to be haphazard, but eventually the whole body gets attention.
The red-tailed hawk parents across the canyon are being kept busy by their hungry chicks. This year they have a trio of youngsters to feed–last year they successfully fledged two chicks–but apparently they’ve not had any trouble finding enough food for all three of them. If I had the luxury of staying home all day to watch hawks I’d probably get to see several feedings throughout the day. As it is, most days this week I’ve been able to watch a late afternoon feeding when I come home.
The chicks are now big enough to thermoregulate on their own, and quite often will be left in the nest alone for extended periods. The other day when I was home for lunch I happened to see the mama hawk fly up the canyon and alight in a pine tree close to my house. A quick check of the nest showed that the chicks were sleeping (I didn’t see any fuzzy lumps above the rim of the nest) so I concentrated on the mom and was able to take this photo:
All told she was away from the nest for about 15 minutes. She basked in the sun, did a bit of preening, and spent quite a lot of time looking down (I assume for prey on the ground). A raven and a pair of Anna’s hummingbirds tried to engage her in some extracurricular activity, but she ignored them.
This afternoon I got home at about 17:30 and went out back to check on the nest. Turns out I made it home just in time to view the evening feeding. One of the parents, I couldn’t tell which, was feeding the chicks long bloody strips of some mammal that had gray fur. All three chicks were fed. Here, see for yourself:
The chicks are growing real feathers now and look like awkward pre-adolescents. They’ve lost the cuteness of the fluffy baby stage and haven’t yet attained the badassness of their parents. In fact, right now they’re downright ugly. In the next couple of weeks they’ll start looking like punky teenagers as their feathers continue to come in. They’ll also spend more time walking around the nest.
Oh, and by the way, the nest is attracting flies now. Good thing birds don’t have a keen sense of smell, because it’s gotta be pretty stinky up there, what with all the bird poop and rotting bits of previous meals. Also good (for the humans in the neighborhood) that the nest is about 100 feet above the ground.
For as long as sentient humans have walked across the surface of the planet, they have observed the world around them. Quite often these observations had direct life-or-death consequences, as most of survival had to do with finding food while not becoming someone else’s dinner. Fast forward a few million years and we find ourselves mired in technology, often interacting with the outside world through some sort of digital interface. And yes, I totally get the irony of writing that statement in a blog. Be that as it may, I’ve found that people generally don’t pay much attention to what’s going on around them. My job as a biology professor is to teach some of the forgotten skills of the naturalist, including the practice of observation.
Today I took my Ecology students birdwatching. We looked at other things, of course, but birds were the primary focus of today’s observations. We started the day near the mouth of Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing, where we were immediately challenged to identify some shorebirds. Fortunately we had a guest lecture from a seabird biologist yesterday, and she gave us some important clues to help us with our field IDs.
Some shorebirds are fairly easy to identify, such as this long-billed curlew (Numenius americanus). It was foraging in a stand of pickleweed just off the road, which is the only reason I was able to take a decent photo of it.
We also saw marbled godwits (Limosa fedoa), willets (Tringa semipalmata), as well as the flocking “peeps,” which we never got a really good look at but all agreed might have been sanderlings (Calidris alba).
One of the things we had been warned about was the difficulty of identifying gulls. There are some features that help when the birds are in adult breeding plumage, but gulls go through several juvenile plumages before attaining their adult colors and there’s a lot of phenotypic overlap among species. Case in point:
Some of these adults are western gulls (Larus occidentalis) but some look different (smaller bodies, different beak coloration). They might be sub-adult westerns or another species entirely. And even the birds in juvenile plumage varied a lot; some were speckled or mottled while others were more uniformly colored. Several birds (not in this photo) had pale gray backs and pale tan flanks. According to my field guide, National Geographic’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America, there are several species that have this plumage in their second or third winter. We kind of gave up on the gulls, but to be honest we didn’t have a lot invested in identifying them.
The highlight of the beach part of the field trip, at least for me, was seeing snowy plovers (Charadrius nivosus). These tiny birds are perfectly colored to hide in the sand, and unless they move they are almost impossible to see. I found them because we unwittingly wandered too far up the beach towards the dunes and accidentally flushed them from their divots in the sand.
This morning I saw my first humpback whale of the season. A couple of whale watching boats were lingering around the mouth of the harbor, which should have clued us in that there was something going on. However, it took a kayaker to tell us that there were breaching humpbacks just off the jetty before we realized. And I call myself a naturalist? Sheesh.
This bird is, I think, a third-winter western gull (L. occidentalis).
This species is endemic to the California Current, which means that it is found nowhere else. The pink legs are characteristic of western gulls, and the black on the tip of the bill indicates a third-winter bird. Adults have a red spot towards the end of the bill but not on the very tip. If you look closely you can see that this bird has a tiny bit of red immediately proximal to the black smudge.
After lunch we convened at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve visitor center, across the highway and inland a bit from our morning site. The students got a 30-minute orientation to the history and geography of the Slough, then we went on a hike.
The first leg of the hike was a short walk to what is appropriately called the overlook. This is where I gave the students their only real assignment of the day. They had to spend 10 minutes in silent observation. They could write in their notebooks and look around with binoculars, but they were not allowed to talk at all. With some groups this is a nigh-impossible feat, but these students did a fantastic job. After the 10-minute observation period we discussed what they had seen and heard. One student said he heard 26 bird calls, but didn’t know how many of them were the same bird making different calls. Others mentioned the sounds of human activity–traffic on the highway, planes flying overhead, the beep-beep-beep of a truck in reverse–as well as the buzz of insects and birds. I asked if anyone else had noticed the shadow of a turkey vulture that flew directly over us.
I think this is a very valuable exercise and would like to extend this period of silent observation to 15 or 20 minutes for future classes. In a lot of ways class always feels a little frantic, and to slow down and simply be a part of nature is a luxury of time that many of us don’t have. Alas, we had other places to visit on the hike and needed to get moving again.
Much of Elkhorn Slough used to be a dairy, and the Slough is still surrounded by agricultural fields. There are two barns on the Reserve, named Big Barn and Little Barn. Little Barn is used for equipment storage and isn’t open to the public, but you can walk into Big Barn. There are two barn owl boxes in Big Barn. We searched under them for owl pellets; we didn’t find any intact pellets but did see some that had been dissected by previous human visitors.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much green at Elkhorn Slough. All of the El Niño rains have brought forth a lot of wildflowers and grasses. We hiked past a large stand of non-native poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) on our way to Big Barn. That stuff is going to be difficult to eradicate, as it spreads quickly and outcompetes native species. And yes, this plant is highly toxic to mammals and was, in fact, used by the ancient Greeks for human executions (including that of Socrates).
When we returned to the visitor we asked the Reserve’s naturalist, Jane, to take our picture. So this is class photo #1 of the semester. It’s not complete, as three students were absent today. I hope to get a picture of the entire class another day.
I wanted to take the students to the woodpeckers’ acorn granary, but we didn’t have time to hike that far. Spring break is coming up week after next, and I think I’ll go back to the Slough to say “hello” to the family of acorn woodpeckers. I’m looking forward to having more time than I do at the moment to play outdoors. I want to do some drawing, too!
At this time of year low tides occur in the afternoon. Later in the spring they will shift to mornings. There are a few reasons that I really prefer morning low tides to those that occur in the afternoon: (1) the time of the low gets about 50 minutes later every day, so as the tide series progresses you start fighting loss of daylight; (2) the wind tends to pick up in the afternoon, making it colder and causing ripples on the surface of pools that make it difficult to see; (3) the intertidal is more crowded with human visitors on the afternoon lows. I had decided to use today’s low tide to photograph a particular clump of barnacles at Natural Bridges, and figured that it would be a quick trip because all the extraneous human activity would get on my nerves.
Turns out I found my barnacle clump pretty quickly, but it had been overgrown with tube worms (Phragmatopoma californica) and I wasn’t sure I could see the trait that I was looking for.
At least, I’m pretty sure I was in the right spot, looking at the same barnacles I’d seen in January. In any case, this year for whatever reason we have a bumper crop of Phragmatopoma. They are very abundant and appear to be expanding their range within the intertidal. Somebody should be keeping an eye on that. Ahem.
It was a beautiful afternoon, so when I had finished taking photos for “work” I sat around to bask in the sun and watch the surf.
As I sat quietly, the animals got used to my presence and went about their business as if I weren’t there. To me this is one of the best things about being in nature, the opportunity to disappear and watch animals do their thing without being noticed.
After this bird cooperated so nicely, I challenged myself to catch as many different bird species in a single photograph. I got three in a single frame, twice:
Pelicans are so cool. Their populations were hit hard by DDT but have recovered beautifully in recent decades. To watch them skim the waves is one of life’s great pleasures. But my favorite photo of all the pelicans I shot today was this one of a pelican against the afternoon sky:
The luck with birds didn’t stop when I left the beach, either. As I was walking back I came across a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) standing so still that at first I thought it was a statue even though I knew there wasn’t a statue in that spot.
When all was said and done, it ended up being a good afternoon. I got my attitude adjusted, saw some cool stuff, and left the intertidal feeling better than I did when I arrived. Thank you, Mother Nature, for the much-needed trip outside myself and opportunity to get my head straight.
This past weekend I participated for the first time in the Audubon Society’s Great Backyard Bird Count, in which ordinary folks spend at least 15 minutes observing birds in their own yards. Turns out you can also observe in other sites, but I opted to watch birds from my back deck. As my house backs up to a more or less wild arroyo, I decided to count the entire canyon as my backyard. I’m neither clever nor coordinated enough to take photos while trying to identify birds, so I have no pictures to share with you. I do, however, have data!
Saturday 13 February 2016, 16:51-17:18
Saw and was able to identify:
American robin (Turdus migratorius)
Dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis)
Oak titmouse (Baeolophus wollweberi)
Golden-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla)
Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) – nesting in a eucalyptus tree across the canyon!
Fox sparrow (Passerella iliaca)
California towhee (Melozone crissalis)
House finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)
Northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna)
Heard and was able to ID:
Western scrub jay (Aphelocoma californica)
California quail (Callipepla californica)
Northern flicker (Colaptes auratus)
American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
Sunday 14 February 2016, 12:14-12:33
Saw and was able to ID:
Northern mockingbird
Red-tailed hawk (the same nesting pair)
Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata)
Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura)
Anna’s hummingbird
Heard and was able to ID:
Chestnut-backed chickadee (Poecile rufescens)
Red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus)
Monday 15 February 2016, 16:57-17:27
Saw and was able to ID:
Red-tailed hawk (in nest)
Anna’s hummer
Purple finch (Carpodacus purpureus)
Dark-eyed junco
Chestnut-backed chickadee
American crow
American robins
Golden-crowned sparrow
Wrentit
Fox sparrow
Western scrub jay
Heard and was able to ID:
Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus)
Northern flicker (Colaptes auratus)
All told, in the three observation periods I identified a total of 20 birds from my backyard. Granted, what I’m calling my “backyard” is a lot bigger and more wild than most, which is why I love living where I do: I get to look down to watch birds in flight. I have no idea if 20 is a lot or a few bird species to see at one time in a single location. There are at least that many other species I see commonly or occasionally but that didn’t show up this weekend.
This little project helped me validate my intuition by demonstrating that the middle of the day is not the best time to watch birds if your goal is to see lots of different birds. Clearly, more birds are active in the early evening than during midday. I intended to have a sunrise observation period but never managed to get my act together enough to pull it off. I would expect perhaps as many species as in the early evening, but not necessarily all of the same species. As I write this I can hear the hooting of a pair of great horned owls, audible even over the din of the chorus frogs. The owls hoot back and forth to each other, sometimes all night and into the hour or so before sunrise. Even though I’ve never seen one, it makes me happy to know that they’re in my backyard, along with the raccoons, skunks, opossums, nesting hawks, deer, and the occasional bobcat (and who knows, maybe even a mountain lion every once in a great while). I am fortunate to have all of this nature literally right outside the back door. I do indeed live in paradise.
Yesterday afternoon when I got home I checked out the red-tailed hawk nest across the canyon and didn’t see anybody home. Then I started scanning the trees on both sides of the canyon to see if the parents were around. While I was looking the dad flew in with prey and perched on the top of one of the trees. But he didn’t start eating right away so I thought he might have been showing the prey to the kids. Sure enough, we found one of the juveniles perched just a short distance away.
The adult male’s plumage is nice and sleek, and he perches quite easily on a branch that sways dramatically in the afternoon wind. The juvenile’s feathers are rumpled and its head looks small, probably because it hasn’t been feathered very long, and it had some problems with balance.
At some point the juvenile managed to hop over to its dad, who then shared some of his food.
So we knew for a fact that at least one of the juveniles had fledged; however, we didn’t find the other juvenile anywhere. We did see the adult female perched atop a tall snag on our side of the canyon; she was looking around but didn’t seem worried so we figured that the second juvenile at least wasn’t on the ground or in some other danger.
And lo and behold, as the sun was beginning to set and light the other side of the canyon, we found both juveniles and the adult female perched on trees across the way. So both of the kids had fledged successfully!
I don’t know what the juvenile on the left is doing and why it appears not to have a head. We still haven’t actually seen either of the juveniles flying, but by the time it was getting dark both had returned to the nest for the night. I imagine they slept well after all the day’s exertions!
Our red-tailed hawk chicks are sooo close to fledging now! I’ve been told that the tree-nesting raptors usually first leave the nest to hop around on branches; hence they’re called “branchers.” This afternoon I watched the chicks and was able to catch some of the maneuvering, which included hopping around the edge of the nest.
One of the chicks seems more adventurous than the other. I know that female raptors are larger than males, so I think that males reach their fledging size sooner than their sisters. Which would mean that this earnest almost-brancher is a boy. He’ll be flying soon!
The red-tailed hawk chicks across the canyon from us continue to practice their flapping, preparing to take their eventual first flights. We frequently see one of the chicks standing up in the nest, flapping away and whacking its sibling in the head. They’re too big now for both to be flapping at the same time.
The parents are being kept busy bringing food to their hungry offspring. One or the other is often perched on the top of a pine tree within sight of the nest occupants, usually being pestered mercilessly by a marauding crow, while the other is out hunting. The grown-ups are also, I think, trying to entice the kids out of the nest, by hanging out where the they can be seen and showing the kids how it’s done. I expect that the young ones will fledge in the next couple of weeks. We may not see the actual fledging flights, but I’m certain we’ll hear about them.
