Subject: Re: Bridge-nesting Seabirds
Date: Apr 22 21:29:58 1998
From: "Jon. Anderson and Marty Chaney" - festuca at olywa.net


Scott Downes wrote:

"A request for information. I recently learned of pelagic cormorants using
the underside of a bridge to build their nests. I have heard reports that
cormorants and guillemonts have been known to do this but can find no
references to the subject in literature searches. If somebody knows of a
source that describes this odd nesting phenom, could you supply me with
the reference to that source?

Scott Downes
sdownes at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA

Scott:

I remember seeing pigeon guillemots and gulls using some of the major bridges
on the Oregon Coast for nesting structures - especially the Yaquina Bay bridge at
Newport and the Coos Bay bridge. I can't recall if we also had cormorants nesting -
it seems that they did, but my memory is fading as I age :-)

The only reference I have of this is the (still unpublished ?) "Catalog of Oregon Seabird
Colonies" by Robert L Pitman, Jan Hodder, Mike Graybill and Dan Varoujean, on work
that they'd done in 1979. Roy Lowe, Dan Matthews and I re-surveyed the seabird
colornies on the Oregon coast in 1988, but I am unaware that that information has been
published.

Roy Lowe, USF&WS biologist in Newport, Oregon, would be a great source of information
on the current status of Bridge-nesting seabirds down in Oregon, and might be able to
point out some references.

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, Washington
festuca at olywa.net