Subject: [Tweeters] guillemot feeding behaviour
Date: Aug 15 12:26:53 2006
From: Dennis Paulson - dennispaulson at comcast.net


Hi, Josh.

I assume those guillemots were holding onto their fish until they
died so they could take them to their nestlings (I'm assuming your
observations were this summer). If not in breeding season, I can't
explain it.

The fish were almost surely gunnels, very common eel-shaped relatives
of blennies. There are several species, but the Penpoint Gunnel
(Apodichthys flavidus) is a very common one that can be green, red,
or brown.

Dennis
-----------------
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:48:53 -0700
From: "Josh Hayes" <josh at blarg.net>
Subject: [Tweeters] guillemot feeding behaviour
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>

That reminds me, I meant to ask about this on tweeters.

While we were at Fort Flagler, we spent a lot of time on the beach
near the
boat launch there, where there was regularly a little flotilla of
guillemots
working close to shore. Often, several at once would surface with
fish in
their bills, but then they'd paddle around aimlessly for several
minutes, or
even fly off a little ways, still with the fish hanging out of the
mouth.

Why?

You see a merganser, or a heron, snag a fish, and *snap* it's gone.
Why do
these guys not do that? Are they waiting for it to stop struggling?
Showing
off to prospective mates (hey, baby, check out the size of MY fish!), or
what?

Incidentally, they all seemed to be the same sort of fish,
unidentifiable at
that range through binocs, but rather elongate, eel-shaped, and
reddish-brown. Any ideas of what they were chasing around so
successfully?

-Josh Hayes, josh at blarg dot net

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net

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