Hi Tweets

Bill Lawrence writes (with snips):

>Our prevailing winds are west to east bring moist marine air inland. Surely
>there must be a detectable gradient of "marine smells" for want of another
>term.

Interesting possibility!

>Even we humans detect ocean odors long before we sight the water.

This is fershure! The first time I came out to the West Coast was in a late
January evening with rain and a warm front moving over BC. A carload of us
simultaneously got a hit of unmistakeably ocean-scented (someone said it's
not the salt, but the iodine and/or bromine one smells) warm moist air when
we got out to stretch our legs at Boston Bar well north up the Fraser Canyon
and nearly 200 km (120 mi) inland.

>The directional orientation mentioned above ( see my video comment above ),
>the odor gradient, residual light suggestion and other yet unknown
>behavioral controllers all require basic physiological studies and marble
>murrelet investigations have not progressed much beyond uncontrolled
>habitat/behavioral studies. There is a next level of research to explain
>the reason why questions.

These seem sound points with lots of fascinating possibilities. Just a
hunch, but it seems likely to me that they'd have more than one arrow in the
quiver, that there's be a suite of sensitivities, and conditions determine
which the bird uses.

Those studies will have to happen elsewhere than the Outer Harbor of
Vancouver BC. Fifteen years ago, one could often find many (35-50) pairs of
them in the roughly 70 sq km (~40 sq mi) area between Points Atkinson and
Grey on the outside and First Narrows/False Creek on the city side, by
from-shore telescope surveys on calm winter days with exceptionally good
visibility. In about five years of doing quarterly surveys of the Outer
Harbor from Coast Guard SAR vessels for the Burrard Inlet Environmental
Action Program --mercifully shortened to BIEAP, and pronounced 'Beep!'-- we
were able to find just one bird, possibly the same one as it was usually in
roughly the same stretch of water off Pt. Atkinson each late Fall and Winter
survey, and we've missed it the last couple of surveys.

Likely cause of their complete or nearly-so extirpation in this part of
Vancouver? Logging of the old-growth forest on the local mountains by the
Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). Local reaction to this loss?
Zip. You can hear a pin drop.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)



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>Bill
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