Mating season in a bird colony can be described in many ways- and LOUD is definitely one of those ways. But as a result, I’ve been having some wonderful encounters with baby birds…!
We’ve been having days with incredible weather followed by even better sunsets. If it weren’t for the thorny bushes, stinging nettle, and millions of bugs, I would have been wearing shorts every day. I’m pretty covered up in the field but I am rocking a farmer’s tan right now. We have been getting bites so bad sometimes that all my co-worker and I do in the cabin is talk and scratch our ankles.
We usually perch on rocks and lean over to wash our dishes in the ocean, but one day I decided it would be genius of me to wear my rubber boots and stand more comfortably while washing dishes. It was a particularly disappointing way to learn I had a massive hole in my boot. Another point goes to mother nature.
A new project on the island
While some people (including my research advisor) think that for the sake of all humans, plants, and animals, gulls should be eradicated completely, the government does not agree. I didn’t realize that gulls are actually a culturally important bird to Indigenous people who historically harvested their eggs. Nowadays, we all know they are menaces that will eat any sort of food wrapper, medical glove, or french fry you may be holding. As a result, I’m sure consuming anything they produce would be nothing short of a hazard. As it turns out, the disease toxoplasmosis, which commonly affects rodents, cats, etc., has been found to affect gulls as well. Thus, people are interested in the potential transfer of the disease to humans via gulls- especially if they are to be a culturally important bird to Indigenous people in the future. A professor at UBC decided to start monitoring the gulls here on the island. (Yes mom, the researchers will wear proper protection to prevent disease transfer). Soon a team of gull specialists will be out to capture gulls and attach transmitters to them. The gulls have begun creating nests and laying eggs all over the island- and honestly, they are the laziest looking nests I’ve ever seen.
Fieldwork
We set up nets to catch birds and I brought my speaker to play calls to attract birds to the net. We probably caught 6 different birds (a mix of fox and song sparrows) in one afternoon. We took measurements of ones that were already banded and then measured and banded birds that were unbanded. It was our best day yet for catching birds! Apparently, in past years, when the population was larger, it was common to have 8 birds in traps at a time. That seems a little overwhelming but I’ve been getting tons of practice holding and measuring birds. Something especially difficult is getting them untangled from the net.
Untangling birds: You start by untangling their long toes- when you touch a spot on their feet they unwillingly perch on your finger, it’s pretty cute. Then when their feet are free you hold them by the legs and untangle their wings and head which is much more complicated. Sometimes they sit still but usually, the second a wing is free they start flapping to try and escape. If you don’t hold their feet tight enough they may escape and fly right back into the net (that happened several times to us). It reminds me of trying to untangle a necklace but simultaneously trying to not strangle someone.
4 eggs have hatched into 4 hatchlings! (From the superstar couple if you follow the bird drama). I checked to see if the eggs hatched so that we can band the kids once they are 5 days old. I was so excited to see they finally hatched and I estimated they are now 3 days old! As soon as I went near the nest they started begging for food with their little mouths open. After a few seconds of begging, they laid their heads back down to sleep all cozied into one another. I heard the mom chirping at me and watching me while I was looking at the birds so I left quickly.
After finishing up some work on the sparrows, I mapped out all the crow nests on the island. Crows are of interest to us because they depredate sparrows. By mapping the nests, we are helping create potentially useful data for a future study- for example how a song sparrow’s proximity to a crow’s nest may impact their reproductive success. (It seems like a lot of things we do here are “in case someone will want to use that data in the future to write a paper”). Long-term studies with data spanning decades can be the most valuable thing in science- at the same time, they can be completely useless depending on how dynamic a system is. Science is frustrating.
As I was casually walking around the island I heard a squeaking noise that sounded like a baby bird begging. I ducked down and searched in a nearby bush. I noticed a few feet ahead of me, several sticks that were rounded and appeared to be placed with intention. As my eyes focussed, I realized I was staring into a crow’s nest with several babies inside! This is my FIRST TIME FINDING A NEST- unfortunately, it wasn’t a nest of the species I am studying but it still felt so amazing to come across a nest all by myself.
Not to make this all about gulls, but one thing that is really taking over my life right now is the fact that the gulls are currently mating. It is even more loud and obnoxious than their regular noises. I wake up scared for my life at 3am, 5am, 7am most mornings. As the gull crew continues their work and the birds start laying more eggs, they will become more aggressive towards us and start trying to hit us with their feces. I am thankful for my wide-brimmed hat. Some members of the gull crew are even bringing helmets for protection when they are working with them!
I am becoming neurotic about caterpillars. They are chunky, hairy, and end up on everybody. I was telling my research advisor he had one on him so often that I eventually had to stop because I was annoying myself- okay but it’s hard to take someone seriously when there is a caterpillar on their head. Interestingly enough, we noticed some small white dots on one caterpillar (pictured below) which are actually eggs of a parasitic fly. Once the caterpillars go into a cocoon, the eggs infiltrate their bodies by eating them from the inside out. The caterpillars will never emerge. It’s sad I guess, but I find it really cool that the food chain isn’t some size-ordered linear process. I think it’s fascinating that tiny organisms (like covid) can take down a dominant being (like us). Nothing in nature is as simple as it seems, I think that makes it so interesting!
“An understanding of the natural world is a source of not only great curiosity, but great fulfillment”
-david attenborough
Last Updated on May 29, 2023 by Megan Duchesne