Hi I'm Tania Lewis wildlife biologist at Glacier Bay National Park here to talk
about another research project that we have going on monitoring nesting
seabirds in Glacier Bay we have a variety of islands that are close to
human use to protect sea bird nesting one of the most common seabirds that we
have on these islands are glaucous winged gulls and Glucksman gulls are
large gulls they have beautiful big nests full of grass and moss and
sometimes even seaweed they lay clutches up to three eggs and they're pretty
mellow when you're walking through a gull colony but they they nest very
densely and so it's really important that these areas are not used by people
for camping or hiking because there's just nests everywhere and you know
there's the possibility of people trampling eggs or even just repeated
disturbance can cause the birds to move on lose their clutches and if it's cold
rainy and the bit and the eggs aren't incubated they can actually perish so
for that reason we closed a lot of these islands and in order to make sure that
our Island closures are in the right places and that they're still nesting
going on we do monitoring every year to track populations and track the
distribution of nesting species
so another reason that we monitor glaucous swingles in particular is to
inform a collaborative Park Service Hoonah Indian Association gull eggs
harvest and what we want to do is is just ensure that that goal egg harvest
does not impair the populations of Glocks wing gulls luckily when gulls and
other species lose their eggs to say predation or flooding or human harvest
they can relay those eggs and still have a successful clutch over the summer so
that's one of the things we're monitoring so at a lot of these colonies
in addition to block swing gulls are black boy stur captures black oyster
catchers are not as much a colonial nesting seabird as a solitary dispersed
nesters and they are spread out across the shoreline of Glacier Bay now
unfortunately they love the net the same beaches that people love to camp on and
hike on they love to nest on so I Rajai everyone to keep an eye out for black
oyster catchers and give them some wide space around their nests on some of
these closed islands they nest in even higher densities because they don't have
repeated disturbance not only from people but also from bears and moose and
and all sorts of animals that might walk through their nests on the mainland
black oyster catchers have beautiful nests of shells and stones they usually
laid two or three eggs and they can be very defensive if you get too close they
will yell at you and make a big ruckus they'll also do act like they have a
broken wing or an injured leg and try to get you to follow them away from their
nest and like all birds the farther along they are in the nesting
and the more defensive they become so as the chicks are hatched that's when they
get really really defensive and protective of them and the chicks are
usually in the nest for a few days and then they start to move out and move
around with the birds so keep your eye out if you see a black rice tree catcher
making a ruckus watch for the nest those eggs can really blend in with the rocks
and pretty easy to step on unfortunately so give them a lot of space please third
species that are on some of the islands that are closed are Arctic Terns
Arctic Terns are our colonial nesters usually in big groups we have colonies
up to 500 in the park and they don't only nest on islands they also nest
especially on glacial outwash --is so if you see a lot of turns and they're
relatively small birds black on their heads and orange bills if you see a lot
of terns please be careful their nests are very hidden they're just a couple
eggs maybe in a little tiny scrape maybe just on some seaweed or on some
vegetation hard to see but what's not hard to miss is that small golike bird
dive-bombing you and yelling at you very loudly and it can be quite intimidating
so if you encounter that situation it's good to just get out of the area
so now that you know a little bit more about nesting suburbia viur I encourage
you all to keep an eye out for seabirds that are yelling at you that maybe are
pretending they have a broken wing that are making a ruckus and please pay
attention to their nest give them a lot of room and they will hopefully
reproduce so that we continue to have seabirds in Glacier Bay nesting forever
you