Hello Will,


You may have seen gulls in a thermal. I have not seen this often, but on several occasions over many years. I can only speculate that they are using a thermal as a way of dispersing from a day roost or loafing site. When I was studying Environmental sciences in undergraduate school, I mentioned to one of my professors that I watched gulls using thermals over the Puyallup dump when I was a kid. They just looked like they were enjoying the lift. He said: "they don't do that". I also watched a large group of Thayer's gulls ride, what I believe was a thermal, to great heights in Tacoma last year. There may be some other atmospheric event that is not a thermal but it still had the effect of lift. They flew from a building, got in the thermal, went very high and then dispersed. If it was a thermal, it appeared, by the vertical and other directional movements of the gulls, to be very slowly moving East on a front.Very beautiful to observe against very dark clouds. In the long ago Summers, they have appeared to move only vertically.
I captured some video images, with focus problems, but was able to watch individual bird behavior and group activity within the thermal.


Very neat that you saw one of these events.


Can anyone tell us how common this is?


Dan Reiff
Mercer Island




----- Original Message -----
From: "Will Markey " < yekramw at gmail .com>
To: "tweeters" <tweeters at u. washington . edu >
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 5:58:12 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Odd behavior in gulls

At about 4:12 PM tonight I was in downtown Auburn and looked up into the fading light and noted a flock of gulls several hundred feet up in the air circling like a kettle of vultures. They were to far away to get any better identification. I don't know how long they had been circling before I noticed them, but this behavior went on for about 10 to 15 seconds, then the "pealed off" and flew toward the WNW. I lost sight of them because it was my turn at the cash machine.

To speculate, perhaps they had dispersed during the day to feed in the fields and were grouping up to go out on the water for the night? The weather had improved and they were forming up to go back out on the water?

Has anyone seen this behavior before or have any other ideas what was going on?

Will Markey
E of Auburn on Soos Creek

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