Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 07/22/2009 - 04:44
Forums
Seabird Ecology in the Bering Sea

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the tour around the town. I was wondering how far you have to go from your house to see the birds...the ones you are researching and the ones you are just observing. I am trying to picture if the birds are just flying all around as St. Paul is one of the few land masses for many miles, or if they tend to congregate in certain areas. Of the bird species you have seen, what percentage would you say have a diet of mainly fish? Does your team also keep track of the number of the birds? Is this data available online? I am asking this partially out of personal interest and from the angle of being able to relate what you are experiencing to what our students observe while out on the creek in Calvert County, Maryland.

Thanks,

Michelle

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 09:30

Thomas Harten

Hello Michelle,
Birds are everywhere here. I can look out my living room window and
scan the lagoon with my spotting scope for birds. Mainly shorebirds and
gulls like the Black-legged Kittiwakes.
A short walk from the house is a spot on the Bering Sea called East
Landing. I walked there last night and saw a life bird for me, the
Sabine's Gull. This small pelagic gull is really a striking bird.
The nesting birds ring the island in any spot where there is a cliff
face. We usually have to drive by ATV to access any of the sites, first
by the road and then by dirt tracks to reach the sites. It might take
us 40 minutes to reach some of the spots.
Where mainly focused on the movements of the birds with the use of the
GPS and other data loggers. There are people here from the USFWS that
are monitoring the numbers of birds and the numbers of successful nests.
We are studying the diet of the birds too. When possible, we get a puke
sample (the technical term) and these are analyzed to see what the birds
are eating. When we combine that data with the GPS data, we also learn
more about the locations of the fish.
Some of the birds, like the Least Auklets, feed on large copepods. Our
summer center students should find that interesting!
I'm not aware of the data being on-line, but that doesn't mean that it's
not. I will look into that!
Thanks for the question!

Wed, 07/22/2009 - 11:45

Michelle Daubon

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the information. It sounds amazing!