Subject: Re: Calif. Gull Migration (was Fall Migration)
Date: Aug 13 07:08:40 1997
From: Raymond Korpi - rkorpi at clark.edu


On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Michael Price wrote:
> Hi Tweets,
>
> Alan Richards & Ann Musche and Andy Stepniewski refer to California Gulls
> (CAGU) migrating westbound to the coast from the interior at high altitude
> ("approx 5000 ft" and, "above treeline elevation, ~ 6,500'" respectively),
> with Andy querying:
>
> >Why don't they follow the Columbia River. I know it's a ciruitous route
> >along the riverto the ocean, but wouldn't there be more to eat than a
> >flightline high above the ground?

There certainly is a significant migration of California Gulls going on
here along the COlumbia, but what's very interesting is that I've seen
no first-year juveniles on the ground here. Every new juvy I've
seen has been floating over the Clark campus or wherever I might be
birding in the area, going oceanward. The fields here at Clark, when
they have Californias right now, have pretty exclusively adult birds--there is
occasionally a second-year bird.

This leads to an interesting question about the behavior of California
Gulls (given, of course, that I might be missing some birds somewhere)
is this: are the juveniles led to the beach for the winter pretty
exclusively? There are bunches of freshly plumaged and very attractive
juvy Californias on the coast. The high migration seen may be birds
that are going very fast to the coast rather than working down the river
or areas. An interesting thread . . .

RK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray Korpi "In sports [today], we ignore the decent and the
Hm: Portland, OR admirable; basically, we don't have time for these
Wk: Clark College any more." --Frank DeFord, NPR, 7/16/97
Vancouver, WA
rkorpi at clark.edu "Just in sports?" --RK, 7/16/97