---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Suryan, Rob <rob.suryan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 5:16 PM Subject: Common murre studies at Yaquina Head To: [many] Hi All, The crew is back out at Yaquina Head again this year and looking forward to adding another year to the time series. Lucila (Lu) Fernandez is an Environment for the Americas intern working with OSU, USFWS, and BLM and will be providing updates as the season progresses. Her first update is pasted below. Thanks for your interest in the project, Rob Hi all! OSU's 2014 seabird studies at Yaquina Head resumed the last week of May. We're on site about five days a week and started tracking over 200 breeding pairs of murres within twelve plots, split evenly between Colony Rock and Flat Top Rock. As in the past, our main studies focus on the bottom-up (prey) and top-down (predator) impacts on the breeding success of Common Murres. So far Colony and Flat Top Rocks both suffer from frequent disturbances from Bald Eagles. Disturbances by eagles are occurring daily. The north end of Colony Rock and much of Flat Top Rock are most affected. In the first week of observations, we witnessed one gull take approximately 15 eggs within 10 minutes! This trend is similar to those of past years, where the north end of Colony Rock is so disturbed that no eggs are to be found. Fortunately, so far the murres nesting on the south end of Colony Rock have been disturbed very little. Unfortunately not so for Flat Top Rock, which used to be the "safe haven" compared to Colony Rock. Of the 100 pairs being monitored on Flat Top, only 12 still have eggs to protect. These remaining eggs are all in a single plot, near the top of the rock. The rest of Flat Top was repeatedly flushed and subsequently cleared of eggs by turkey vultures and gulls, causing widespread nest failure. Nests on Colony Rock seems to be more successful at avoiding infiltration by predators. Of 103 murre eggs being tracked in plots on Colony Rock, 65 pairs look to be still incubating eggs. No chicks have been sighted yet, but many of these eggs should be near hatching and it shouldn't be too much longer! Let's hope that the remaining murres continue to hang tight on those eggs and chicks so that we can get some prey data! Reports from Mexico and California indicate that the Brown pelicans have abandoned breeding attempts, started moving northward earlier than usual, and may be arriving on the Oregon coast sooner than expected. Evidence of this trend has been observed by YHONA park staff and our crew. Flocks of Brown pelicans have been observed flying over Colony Rock, while others were perched nearby. Additionally we are seeing a lot of Heermann's Gulls along the coast and offshore for so early in the season. The season is still very much in progress. If you haven't already, we hope that you can visit Yaquina Head to watch the drama unfold. Cheers, Lucila Fernandez Ian Throckmorton Jessica Porquez Alessandra Jimenez-Yap Amanda Gladics Rob Suryan ________________________________ OBOL archives: www.freelists.org/archive/obol Manage your account or unsubscribe: //www.freelists.org/list/obol Contact moderators: obol-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx