Babies Babies Everywhere

Sometimes in America, when we are embroiled in modern life, shrunk wrapped into our cars and entombed in our suburban houses and vacuum-sealed into air-conditioned offices, it's hard to tell that summer's about more than barbecues, fireworks, and a trip to the beach.  For the vast majority of species out there, summer's about babies -- putting forth heroic efforts during a very short window of time to pass on DNA to the next generation.  But here on Kent Island, it's in our face, all the time.

My favorite nest site on the island; in a fish tote that washed up above the beach.  Looks super cozy.

Mama came right back to sit on her eggs once we moved on.

The herring gull eggs are hatching.  We have thousands of nests on the island, most with three eggs in them. That means thousands of fluffy little chicks, thousands of begging mouths to fill, and thousands of angry moms and dads when we get too close to a nest or hatchling.

Gulls can get downright dangerous if you venture too close to their nests. They mob us, swoop down on us, rake us on the head, scream in your ear, and poop with surprising accuracy.  To protect ourselves, we move quickly, wear hats, hold up sticks above our heads (they go after the highest point of the intruder), and construct Gull Protection Devices.  It all makes going for a walk downright unpleasant, and trying to do any research on the beach seriously difficult.

Two eggs hatching.  The upper left one has a hole but it's hard to see.

What a herculean effort it must be to break free from the shell.

This chick was freshly hatched -- still wet.  Welcome to the world, little gull!

You really have to watch where you step.  Babies can be hiding anywhere.

 The adult gulls are rather pesky, as you might imagine.  However, the babies are really cute at this stage. Covered with grey fluff, hiding under bushes and behind their angry parents, whistling softly or begging loudly, baby gulls are pretty cute.  They'll have a hard life, and for most of them, it'll be short.  Especially for the third egg baby, chances are, you won't make it past September.  A hungry eagle will grab you, you'll die of exposure, you'll starve, or you just won't learn to take care of yourself.  In the back of my mind, I know for each of these cute little puff-balls, it'll be a desperate struggle to stay alive for a few years, until they're old enough to have their own chicks.  But it's hard to think life is so hard, when I'm surrounded by so much hope and life everyday.  Thank goodness for chicks, and pass the gull protection device, I'm going for a walk!

A black back gull trying to take my head off.  This is without magnification; he was dive bombing me!  Sorry it's not in focus; I feared for my life when this was taken.

A student wearing a Gull Protection Device.

Damon's head; a victim of a gull attack during a run.  Just another day at a seabird colony!

The only kind of gull I trust.  But he does look a little suspicious . . . .

Three eggs and a prayer

Your run of the mill three egg nest.  One of them is unlikely to make it far in life!

Kent Island is an offshore seabird colony.  When people hear about our summer home, they say "oh, that must be so peaceful".  No.  Not at all.

Everywhere you go; there they are.

We are surrounded by gulls, eiders, guillemots, petrels, and eagles; all in their breeding season, all desperately trying to survive and raise a chick or two to pass their DNA on to.  Gulls are the most obvious of our residents (though not the most numerous; those are Leach's storm petrels).  We have quite a lot of herring gulls (as in thousands), plus a few black-backed gulls thrown in for good measure.  Herring gulls can be annoying; especially when they poop on you or dive bomb you or scream in your ear (my personal favorite) to keep you away from their nests.  But they're also very funny, and easy to observe.  They often visit camp at night, when the june bugs are out, and watching them catch these big bugs is amusing.  Later in the season, they also visit the blueberry bushes surrounding camp, to gobble down the berries.  There's nothing funnier than watching a big gull swimming through the blueberry bushes plucking tiny lowbush blueberries off the branches.

Right now the gulls are all sitting on nests; which you can find all over the island.  Some are right above the high tide line on the beaches; some are in the tall grass; some are up in the ferns on South Hill.  Herring gulls lay three eggs each year; each one on a consecutive day.  In the old days, islanders would collect gull eggs every summer, and to make sure they were getting eggs that hadn't developed into chicks yet, they would choose eggs from nests with only one or two eggs in them -- so the eggs were less than two days old.

A modern dinosaur sitting on her nest. She looks like one mean momma!

Hiding behind Priscilla's gravestone -- the perfect place for a nest.

The third egg in the nest is the "insurance policy".  It's smaller and lighter than the other eggs, and the chick hatches later, grows slower, and is more likely to die than its siblings.  Unless there is an abundance of food, the third chick is pretty much doomed.  We see those third chicks die quite a lot -- death is a big part of life on a small island.

So why have three chicks if only two are likely to survive?  In really good years, all three can survive.  Other years, that third chick is a back up -- if the first two (hardier) chicks die, all the resources can go towards the little guy.  Chicks die a lot -- preyed on by eagles, blackback gulls, and ravens, or killed by other herring gulls if they wander to far from their own nest.  So the third one sometimes comes in handy.  But if the first two aren't killed before fledging, it's a good bet the runt won't make it.  And if the first two do make it?  The mom didn't lose too many resources on that third egg anyways.

Pretty soon chicks will be hatching out all over the island.  When that happens, the gulls will get even more aggressive and irritating (ever tried to walk through a patch of divebombing gulls that use poop as a weapon?).  But the babies are pretty cute for their first few weeks.  I'll post some shots of those when they come along.  In the meantime, if you're interested in another Kent Island blog, check out Emily's.

Even though gulls are a pain in the butt, they're rather amazing.