BYE-BYE, BIRDIES

Next time you take a boat ride out to Islesford in the Cranberry Isles, see if you notice any change. It’s the seagulls. They’re gone.

Most years, scores of the gulls – black backs and herring gulls – glide around the dock area looking for stray morsels. That’s when they aren’t lined up along the ridge poles of the dock houses or swooping down to squabble over garbage that someone has dumped at the water’s edge. This year, no more than one or two can be seen.

Oddly, most folks haven’t noticed their absence. Must be a case of Sherlock Holmes’ dog that didn’t bark.

The lobstermen, when asked, agree that the gulls are missing in the dock area. But Dave Thomas, Dan Fernald, and Richard Howland all say that flocks of gulls still follow their boats when they are out fishing on the ocean. Cory Alley says it’s nesting season, and the usual swarm of gulls around the docks must be working to produce the next generation.

A bird specialist at Acadia National Park suggests that the gulls must have chosen a different feeding pattern.

Dave Thomas observes that there are more mosquitoes than ever, and maybe the mosquitoes have been eating the seagulls.

After all that speculation, a specialist steps up to the plate. Dr. Rebecca L. Holberton, a biologist at the University of Maine specializing in bird migration, agrees with Mr. Alley that it’s the breeding season. She says, “It may be that there are fewer gulls hanging around the docks, etc., right now because they are busy raising chicks, which would still allow them to follow the boats, since they probably get a lot of food that way.” She adds: “Many seabirds right now are actually rearing chicks, meaning that they are very busy making many trips during the day bringing food to the young. Since both sexes are needed to rear fast-growing gull chicks, even the males are not allowed to be couch potatoes once the kids have hatched.”

Another mystery solved.