Greetings -- I would like to add that our 7/25/97 Cal. Gull sighting of 70
birds was (approx)
15 1st-yr birds
45 adults
10 2nd-yr or intermediate betw 1st-yr and adult
-- I did not include this info in 1st post
--Alan Richards / Naselle WA / mrm at WILLAPABAY.ORG
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(Michael Price wrote / quoted the following on 08/14/97, which I have
reduced somewhat at [snip] marks -- ar)

>Hi Tweets,
>
>Regarding California Gull (CAGU) age-sorting in southbound migration, Ray
>Korpi writes:
>
>>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 . . .
>
>Ray, the answer may be in Harry N's entry in the thread.
>
>Harry Nehls then writes:
>
>>There is a very heavy adult California Gull migration down the Columbia
>>River beginning about mid June. These may be birds from the Columbia Basin.
>
>..[snip]..
>>An interesting sidelight. California Gulls molt during the movement and
>>many arrive on the coast in very poor condition, often with considerable
>>mortality. Many of these adults drop down along the migration route and are
>>regularly found on mountain lakes and interior valley wetlands.
>
>Folks, sorry for using lots of bandwith to quote both posts but there's
>information in each that may shed light on this question of 'adults on the
>field, juvs on the coast'.
> ..[snip]..
>Maybe at one time, adults and juvs migrated together but over time the
>adults, being more opportunistic through experience, learned to stop on
>fields and campi whereas the juvs, propelled by instinct alone, went
>straight to the coast (why wouldn't they imitate the adults' behavior,
>then?) Interesting! As another sidelight, that means family bonding vanishes
>very quickly in CAGU (and perhaps the other migratory gulls). Compare to
>non-migratory Glaucous-winged Gulls here in Vancouver BC where the
>First-year bird hangs around bugging the parents for food for
>months--sometimes almost the entire year-- after fledging.
>
>Cheers
>
>Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
>Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
>mprice at mindlink.net
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