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Sometimes it takes a decade to solve a mystery.<\/p>\n
Today, I was walking in Kokanee Park and saw a bird that didn’t quite fit my repertoire. Certainly, it was a gull, but which one? When the image was on the computer, it turned out to be an Iceland Gull, and one in its first winter of life.<\/p>\n
Now, the name, Iceland Gull, is a tad deceptive. While some of them do visit Iceland, they only do so in the winter. A Canadian population breeds in the Arctic Archipelago and some of them winter along the West Coast. A vanishingly small number of these birds pass through our region in October and November when going between sites. Here was one at the mouth of Kokanee Creek, in late October.<\/p>\n
An Iceland Gull in its first winter stops by Kokanee Creek Park in late October.
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But how did this solve a decade-old mystery? The clue comes from reading the literature on the Iceland Gull. I learned that it has an unusual behaviour<\/a>. Unlike other gulls, it: “Picks food off [the] surface of water, often without landing, and swallows prey while flying.” I have seen a gull do this — but only once, and that was ten years ago. While flying, it grabbed a fish and then swallowed it while still on the wing.\u00a0<\/p>\n But, was it an Iceland Gull that performed this singular feat?\u00a0 The migration time fitted. The picture, below, was taken 2011\/10\/20, only four days off being ten years to the day from my present observation. Further, the pattern of wing plumage is virtually identical to a picture of a nonbreeding adult Iceland Gull shown on All About Birds<\/em>. Further, two seconds after this picture was taken, the gull, still on the wing, had swallowed the fish.<\/p>\n California Gull<\/strong>: See my posting<\/a> that reveals the fish-carrying bird, below, is actually a California Gull.<\/p>\n My suspicion is that the unusual decade-old behaviour of catching and swallowing a fish was because the bird was an Iceland Gull. Now, because this gull’s fishing behaviour is mentioned on a few websites, I suspected that there must be quite a number of pictures online showing an Iceland Gull flying with a fish sticking out of its bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n I found none. I cannot imagine that my decade-old shot is unique, but here it is.<\/p>\n An Iceland Gull scarfs a just-grabbed fish during flight. It was seen only about 100 m from where today’s Iceland Gull was seen near the mouth of Kokanee Creek. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes it takes a decade to solve a mystery. Today, I was walking in Kokanee Park and saw a bird that didn’t quite fit my repertoire. Certainly, it was a gull, but which one? When the image was on … Continue reading
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