Subject: [Tweeters] Lake Sammamish Gull mystery
Date: Jan 22 07:19:05 2005
From: Tom Bowden - TBOWDEN at halcyon.com


Bill & All,

Lake Sammamish has prolific winter hatches of a small insect called a
chironomid. The gulls are feeding on the insects and also watching for
small fish that feed on the bugs. Fly-fishers who fish the lake in the
winter look for working gulls to locate the hatch and hence the fish that
also feed on chironomids.

Tom





At 10:05 PM 1/21/2005 -0800, Bill Austin wrote:
>Hi Tweeters,
>I am new to this, so forgive the format ...
>Where I live we are overlooking the south central part of lake Sammamish.
>(My condo faces north.) And all this month I have seen on sunny days
>hundreds of medium sized gulls swimming in the lake in a certain area
>maybe the size of a football field or larger. They arrive in the morning
>and leave in the afternoon. While there, they seem to swim forward about
>50 yards then fly up, circle back, land and repeat the pattern. Endlessly.
>They dont seem to be feeding, at least not that I can see with my
>binoculars. So I am wondering who they are and what they are doing...?
>
>Then one day, while this was going on, a flock of a hundred or more HUGE
>gulls or large bent wing birds similar to osprey, appeared, swirling and
>circling in a slow motion tornado ABOVE the gulls on the water. They
>seemed to be interested in the smaller birds on the water, but I never saw
>an attack or skirmish between the two communities as long as I was
>watching them (about an hour). So I am also wondering who they are and
>what they were doing.
>
>This was a fascinating and unforgettable scene; I hope someone can shed
>some light on what was going on.
>Thanks,
>
>Bill Austin
>4165 178th Ln. SE, Unit 301
>Bellevue, WA
>98008
>
>206.953.2766
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