[Bristol-Birds] Urban and rural gulls of the Upper Holston impoundments

From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:52:28 -0500











          Gulls waking towards an arriving car near Lowe's in Bristol TN

 Driving in south Bristol Tennessee quickly reveals a nice flock
 of Ring-billed Gulls soaring over buildings, perched on utility poles
 and standing in parking lots.  It is amazing that these birds show
 obvious signs of being urban gulls.  It is not just that they are in
 an urban setting.  There is more to it than that.

 It seems that we have two distinct populations of Ring-billed Gulls
 wintering in Sullivan Co., TN and Washington Co., VA.  Let's call
 them "urban gulls" and "rural gulls".  

 Here is the evidence.  Much of it has
 been learned from trapping  and 
 banding Ring-billed Gulls in urban 
 settings but that was not a  necessary 
 requirement in order to think this.  It 
 is a process that  we often share with 
 other birders:  don't just ID birds....think 
 about why they are were they are and 
 when they are there and exactly  what 
 we are seeing -- stand and think.

 A thousand of such gulls may be 
 wintering on impoundments in Sullivan
 County.  Hundreds are frequenting
 the urban parking lots.

   Sam Cross with gull in 2004         Trapping and banding in winter taught
us that urban gulls are so accustom to people they will
actually walk up to a car driving into a parking lot to see if food will
be tossed to them or if the remnants of a burger or whatever will
be discarded from a window.  They are not shy and come very close.

These parking lot birds land on McDonald's golden arches just as
soon as they arrive in town in mid-winter as they are driven in by
the freezing waters and snow storms in the north.  

They do not appear to come to us from the ocean.  They are thought
to be coming in from the Great Lakes and interior Canada.

The web site Migratory Birds of the Great Lakes reads: 

Highly tolerant of humans and human-impacted habitat, Ring-billed 
Gulls can be found around landfills, farm fields, mall parking lots and 
golf courses in addition to coastal beaches, islands and breakwaters. 

The gulls on our more open waters and impoundments are not tolerant
of humans and do not let you approach them on foot or by boat.  They
are very wary.  It appears they do not have much human contact at any
season of the year.  Humans do not mean food.  They mean danger.

Both populations are difficult to trap.  Urban gulls do not fly under utility
lines unless hard pressed to escape.  They do not fly under anything.
They do not fly under trees.  They perch on rooftops and walk on
driveways and sidewalks where they are not facing danger.


The map at the left, borrowed from an online
website, shows the breeding range of the
Ring-billed Gulls in red.  Note that these
inland gulls are hardly "sea gulls" by the
normal stretch of the imagination.  They
are actually freshwater gulls.

The light blue shows the wintering range
over much of North America. 
Some breed and winter around the 
Great Lakes, as shown in purple.

Do Ring-billed Gulls perch on utility poles and feed in the parking lots
of McDonald's, Wal-Mart and so many other look-alike retail places
on both their breeding grounds and wintering grounds -- there and here ?
Do they recognize that McDonald's golden arches advertise fast food
for not only humans but Ring-billed Gulls ?  They will fly between cars
and walk among traffic in fast food lots to get any crumbs and scraps
of food.  They seem to do that the first day they arrive here for winter.
It does not appear to be something they have to learn and get up their
nerve to handle.  They already know all about these signs and light
poles to perch atop.

Are the birds which frequent our lakes and such by the thousands
from the prairie areas of Canada and northern states ?  Do they not
only nest and feed in fields and such well away from much human
activity but keep their distance here also ?

Does this give us a hint that we have populations from both
of these areas -- urban and rural gulls ?

Let's go birding . . . .

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
[Bristol-Birds] Urban and rural gulls of the Upper Holston impoundments

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