Subject: RBA: SABINE'S GULLS--*MANY*, Vancouver BC, June 05 1998
Date: Jun 5 16:32:40 1998
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

***134*** SABINE'S GULLS off the Iona South Jetty tip this AM!!!

Unbe-effin'-*LIEV*able!!!

Please excuse the hyperbolic effusions (oh hell, cowboy, why cain't ya just
say 'Yahooo!' like anyone else?), but this has gotta be *the* highlight of
my Vancouver BC birding career!!!

Went out to the tip of the Iona South Jetty early this AM, and--giving it
another twenty minutes or I'm gonna head back for breakfast-- about 0800
PDT, I saw a distant, large unison-flying flock of what I thought were terns
at an approx altitude of 150-200 meters, and immediately started looking for
the inevitable jaeger(s). No dice. I watched the flock as they began peeling
off and returning to close to the surface, hoping they'd approach closer so
1) I could see what tern species they were and 2) look for the jaegers
almost certain to be tagging along behind them. At the time I estimated
about 150 birds. I lost them at distance in the surface heat-haze, which was
quite severe this morning.

About twenty minutes later, I picked up an incoming light-morph Parasitic
Jaeger Stercorarius parasiticus, then another, when two large flocks of
birds arose from the water just in front of it and began banking and jinking
in unison flight. Contrasted against the dark forests of Vancouver Island,
with long slanting morning sunlight on them, I could see that there were two
pure flocks of Alternate-plumaged SABINE'S GULLS Larus sabini, one of about
sixty birds, the other about eighty, all in Definitive Alternate plumage. I
counted ***134*** of them, with the possibility of another 15-20 birds. A
hundred and thirty-four. Oh, man.

Consider: one or two per year is average SAGU distribution for Vancouver BC,
three is unusual and anything more a wretched excess. But there *is*
precedent: on June 03 1990, same location, I saw a large flock of 56,
confirmed by three other birders, Mark Wynja, Tom Plath and Kelly Sekhon, up
to then unprecedented for the Greater Vancouver Checklist Area. Each time,
I'm wondering, wondering, wondering....and then they all turn in unison and
contrast their diagnostic pattern against the darkness of Vancouver Island.

Twice may be too few to set a pattern, but I'm getting suspicious this may
be an annual event around Week 1 June. So, if it *is* a pattern, here's a
theory. Sabine's stay offshore until 1) they're driven by tempest to take
shelter on inland reservoirs and other sheltered water-bodies, as documented
in Briitish Birds, or 2) they want to turn inland to head to a breeding
site. Since the first doesn't obtain this year, though it might have in
1990, I'm wondering why they'd be in Georgia Strait instead of off the Outer
Coast of Vancouver Island. So maybe there's a small discrete population
which heads inland through one of the big fjiords such as Knight or Bute
Inlet, or maybe up one of the rivers such as the Pitt or Squamish. Comment?

Either way, seeing this beautiful little seabird alone or in company is
something I could never tire of: the big numbers and the theorising are just
icing. Seeing them all in unison flight in long morning light is like
watching a brilliant ballet from the Art Deco period--swirling, disciplined
movement clothed in stunningly severe geometrical forms.

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)