Rob and all

My comfortable place to watch shore life is at the Everett Boat Launch from
either the park or the edge of the launch parking. It has been my
observation that merganser (as well as harbor seal) fishing activity does
not depend on the light as much as on the incoming tide. As the old log
areas begin to flood fishing activity becomes intense (and fun to watch).
Eagles and osprey also obviously take to fishing with the tide. I know that
Eagles and osprey fish by sight as do the seals and mergansers. The large
flocks of mergansers are not to be found at slack or high tide, at least not
in the numbers that that I observe when the tide is coming in.



Thanks for the information from the salmon biologists and your own input.
Great education for me.



Deb... who is certainly no naturalist or scientist, just an observer.

Robe Valley in Washington

42psalm01 at foxinternet.com



http://members5.boardhost.com/Koinonia/index.html

-------Original Message-------



From: Rob Sandelin

Date: 01/06/06 09:37:21

To: 'tweeters'

Subject: [Tweeters] Merganser behavior



I hung out with some salmon biologists the other day and learned that juv
salmonids in streams have different activity patterns at different times of
day. Some of it relates to the angle of the light as it strikes the bottom,
making their insect lunch easier to locate, the highest activities levels
involved food search which peaks when the sun is at particular angles to a
stream reach. This also relates stream topography and riparian vegetation.
Since both mergansers and salmon find their prey by sight it could be that
mergansers are moving to steam reaches in response to salmon feeding levels
which in turn relate to where the light is better at that time of day.



Rob Sandelin

Naturalist, Writer

The Environmental Science School

http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm

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