Subject: [Tweeters] "Spider-catching" Guillemot, ect.
Date: Aug 1 19:26:04 2009
From: jeff gibson - gibsondesign at msn.com
Have been working on a boat in the Everett marina all week , on what I call a poor - mans pelagic trip. (not the open ocean - in fact did'nt leave the dock). I haven't been on the salt water shore much this year , so it was fun watching the local alcids - Guillemots. I've seen a pair feeding around the boat everyday all week.
Late last week as I was watching the Guillemot pair , one of them flew up against the hull of a nearby boat. It appeared to have clunked into the hull at a porthole, so I thought it was maybe looking for a 'hole'. Soon after it bonked up against the hull again in a different spot. Weird. Mad Auk Disease - I was wondering ?
I did'nt have my birding binocs (supposed to be working) but did manage to find the ship binocs and got a closer look and indeed it was nipping something off the side of the boat. I could'nt see what, so I looked at the hull of the boat I was working on to see if some large insects, ect. were out. (I have seen Gulls fly-catching large bugs such as flying termites before.).
Spiders. Lots of spiders on the hull of the boat - not uncommon this time of year. Orb-weavers, and one or two other species, with webs across the portholes and wherever else they could rig up. Not very big yet this early in the summer, but blowing about in the wind evidently making an attractive 'moving target' in their webs.
The day after observing this I was able to get better looks as a single guillemot repeated this behavior in the same place. Swimming out a bit from the boat hull, it was carefully eying the hull. Then it would fly up and snag the spider. Not too gracefully I might add, but it did pull the feat off. Later the same bird was snorkeling along the waterline of another boat , feeding on something just below the waterline.
Why a Guillemot would go for such small tidbits of spiders when fish would be a much easier protein lunch is a question. Bored with 365 days of sushi ? Spider micro-nutrients? I don't know.
The other daily companions in the marina are Harbor Seals which are giving birth now. I've been watching the pregnant females on the nearby logbooms for a while now - looking like hyper-inflated pool toys. They are so large that when on a log their head and flippers don't even touch down. A mom seal has been around with her baby, all lovey-dovey with each other. The baby keeps trying to hitch a ride on moms back. Pretty fun to watch,
Jeff Gibson, Everett Wa.