Week 6: July 7th - 13th
It's a beautiful, if toasty Sunday, and I hope everyone stays cool this 6th week of our PIGU Breeding Survey! If the tides allow, you may want to consider surveying a bit earlier than usual to beat the heat. In any case, be sure to wear your hats and sunscreen!!
I was just taking a peek at this week's data, and we are squarely in the high season. So far, we are up to 167 prey deliveries overall--that's 114 gunnels/pricklebacks, 41 sculpin, and 12 "others". This is not a competition of course, but in case you were wondering...the colony with the highest number of chick burrows (burrows with prey deliveries), is Discovery Bay - Tukey (East Jefferson), with 11! That must be a head spinner! The colonies observing the highest number of fish deliveries for one burrow are Fort Casey and Langley Marina (both on Whidbey), with 7. There are a few colonies that have seen four weeks of deliveries now, so it's possible that chicks will be fledging soon, but most still have a few weeks left, and some are just starting up or still have yet to become active.
I'm curious, has anyone witnessed prey other than gunnel and sculpin, that you were able to identify? Let me know if you've seen something interesting or unusual out there!
Here are a few shots of PIGU with prey during week 5:
Here is a closer pic of that same Pacific Snake Prickleback. Can you spot the difference? PSPs have horizontal dashes running down their midline and an obvious white belly patch. They are also a bit beefier around than gunnels, which tend to look more like slender ribbons.
Don't worry if it isn't obvious to you--we record SPs in the gunnel category since id'ing them can be a bit tricky. I just think it's fun to note the different species, when it's possible. I often put an (P) next to the delivery time when I'm sure I'm seeing a snake prickleback in the mouth.
On a sad note, Mary Bond found a dead PIGU chick on the beach following her survey at Discovery Bay, so I thought it good to revisit the topic of what to do when something like this happens. We generally don't want folks handling dead birds unless they have been trained in how to do it safely, have the right supplies, and if it's been requested by a state agency. For now, I would say, report your findings to WDFW (https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/1550804e5fd743668049e06d5ad8836a ) and leave the bird on the beach. I have reached out to a WDFW wildlife veterinarian for additional guidance, so if I hear differently, I will pass that info. along.
And now I want to share a very interesting disturbance observed by Lee Badovinus and team at Malmo Bluff. Lee said, "During the Malmo Bluff survey, an orca pod passed by Admiralty Inlet directly offshore. The guillemots moved close to the shoreline in a way that was obviously due to the presence of orcas. In fact, the bird count was 31 and 34 before the orcas at 8:04 and 55 at 8:30 when the birds moved inshore and stayed there until the end of the survey." Just when you think you've seen it all! So the question was, does this count as a disturbance when the guillemots actually move inshore? The answer is, yes. This may be a different response pattern than we're used to, but any event that causes the birds to change their behavior, is still a disturbance (and must have been pretty exciting to witness)!
On the topic of disturbances, I asked Cathi Bower for some close-ups of the sketches from her poster that I shared last week. No surprise that Mr. and Mrs. Eagle are the stars of the disturbance scene! These really are delightful, and I'd love for you all to read the text she's written!
I also want to pass along a fun musing that she shared. Cathi relayed to me the moment she realized why it's a good thing to have two surveyors present on survey, even at a small colony. She shared, "The tide was really far out, so there wasn’t a lot of action – easy to get distracted. But we had two deliveries and I missed them both! Arg. The first time I hadn’t even seen anyone sitting with prey, and then suddenly a bug flew in my eye and I was trying to rinse it out, but that’s just when Louie saw a quick delivery. Then a few minutes later, I was talking with the regular gal who walks her dogs down there for just a minute as she was going by, and a bird went into the same burrow right behind us. I then checked back for the prey sitter on the water, and Louie said it had gone in!" I couldn't help but chuckly at the thought-- I think we've all been there before! And I agree with Cathi, two surveyors are always better than one!
Finally, I'm continually amazed by the creativity of our surveyors and how they use it to show their love of PIGU! Maria Ruth sent me this photo of a gorgeous PIGU pie baked up by Melinda Wood, one of the surveyors on her Edgewater Beach team (South Sound), with rhubarb from the garden of another team member. It looks almost too beautiful to eat! All I can say is, yum! I hope they saved me a slice!
This was a bit of a long update, but I hope you enjoyed it!
Take care, all, and soak in every minute of those peaceful mornings out on the beach with the PIGU!
— Shannon