I’ve written in the past about a Great Black-backed Gull which was banded on 17 July 2019 as a flightless juvenile on Appledore Island, ME, about 6 miles off the coast of the ME/NH border, and home of the Shoals Marine Lab. This bird sports a black plastic band on its left leg which says 4JF in white. I first saw it resting on a seasonally exposed gravel bar just north of Inlet Island in Ithaca in February 2020. At that time it was clearly a young bird with a checkered back. I’ve seen it again in Ithaca numerous times throughout this past Spring and Summer. It now looks like an adult except for some small dark markings on the tip of its bill. I last saw it on 4 December 2021 along with 27 other Great Black-backed Gulls on the docks at Treman Marina. To me, it’s fascinating when what would have been an anonymous bird becomes a recognizable individual with a life story, and in this case it’s connected to another place that I and many students have visited. It has spent what may be its final year before breeding here in Ithaca, and for several of those months it was the only Great Black-backed Gull I saw at the south end of Cayuga Lake. Perhaps this coming Spring 4JF will return to Appledore, or maybe somewhere else entirely, to breed.
I haven’t written so much about another immature Great Black-backed Gull which was the only conspecific with 4JF in a small mixed flock of gulls when I first saw them in February 2020. That second bird had white 1HR on the black band on its left leg. Like 4JF, 1HR was also banded when too young to fly on Appledore Island, but a year earlier on 22 July 2018. I haven’t seen 1HR since. Back to the present: Also on the Treman Marina docks on 4 December I saw another Great Black-backed Gull, an adult, wearing a similar black band with white markings, but in this case on its right leg, reading 6AC. This bird was also banded on Appledore, but even earlier, on 17 May 2016. It was described as having hatched in 2015 or earlier, so we don’t know whether it was also hatched there, nor how old it is. I’m curious about how 6AC came to be banded, as well as this approximation of its age. Decades ago when I visited, Appledore had a colony of both Herring and Great Black-backed Gull nests. It must be pretty straightforward to band a chick if you can withstand the wrath of the parents. [I write blithely, not having actually approached gull chicks in their nests. Nor have I trekked through the colony daily to and from littoral study sites while carrying a tall upright stick, not to threaten the gulls but in hopes the birds will peck the top of the stick rather than the top of my head. Nor have I worn a raincoat, not because of bad weather, but to keep gulls’ well-aimed shit from hitting my clothes or person.] But capturing a huge, strong, smart gull who can fly, and doing so without either party getting injured must be a different project. Was a trap or net set for a single bird at a time? Or was there a bigger effort to catch multiple birds at once? Was 6AC captured as an immature bird whose actual age was unclear to the banders? I had thought that immatures typically might not bother or even be welcome to return to the colony in spring. Or was 6AC an adult who was there to breed, but again the banders were not confident in saying how many years it took to reach breeding age? At any rate, we have at least a third confirmed Appledore connection among the Great Black-backed Gulls who visit Ithaca. I don’t know of any relation between 4JF & 6AC. I saw just 4JF among the crowd as I walked past the marina toward the lakeshore and just 6AC as I walked back out, although it’s possible they were near each other and took turns sitting down and hiding their legs. I wonder about all the other Great Black-backed Gulls who are not banded. How many of them are from Appledore? Or what other places to they hail from? - - Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
