[obol] August 12: Final Yaquina Head Murre and Cormorant Update

From: Range Bayer <range.bayer@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Oregon Birders OnLine <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Lincoln Co. Birding & Nature Observing" <LCBNO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 12:13:06 -0700

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Suryan, Rob <rob.suryan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 11:12 AM
Subject: Yaquina Head murre and cormorant update
To:  [many]

Hi all,

The week of July 29th marked peak fledging from Colony Rock at Yaquina
Head.  Chick and adult pairs are still very vocal and can be heard
calling from the water.

Disturbances caused by adult and sub-adult eagles cleared most of Flat
Top Rock at the beginning of July. We lost all murres in our plots on
Flat Top on July 10th. However, about 1% of the murres remained on the
rock feeding and protecting chicks until July 26th.

Since June, Colony Rock has had little disturbance allowing for forty
of the chicks monitored to remain on the rock.  All of these have
fledged. Since chicks began fledging, only a few chick carcasses were
found on Cobble Beach. However, this changed dramatically on July
29th, when 146 fledglings were found washed up on Nye Beach during a
carcass survey.

Cormorants this year have been doing very well on Lion’s Head,
Smuggler’s Cove, Lower Colony Rock, and Seal Rock. On Seal Rock in
particular, every Brandt’s pair within our plots are successfully
rearing chicks. Many are five to six weeks old, too big to fit in the
nest, and are practicing flight. The Headland is the only location
where cormorants were unsuccessful.  Initially it was filled with
Brandt’s cormorants and sixty-six nests were mapped for monitoring.
But, eagles perched on the headland while disturbing Flat Top, caused
all but ten nests to be abandoned. Since then, pelagic cormorants have
begun nesting on the walls of headland where they seem to be doing
well. The remaining ten mapped Brandt’s nests, have had little
disturbance and now pairs have fledging chicks.

In the News:  Cheryl Horton captured video of the Japanese dock that
washed up on Agate Beach last summer.  The discovery was picked-up by
many news sources, including:
http://www.kcby.com/news/local/Before-it-was-famous-File-video-shows-Agate-Beach-tsunami-dock-afloat-216085721.html?tab=video&c=y

This is our last update for the season.  We will send our annual
summary report as soon as it is finished.  Thanks for following our
updates this summer!

Stephanie Loredo
Cheryl Horton
Amelia O’Connor
Amanda Gladics
Jessica Porquez
Rob Suryan

P.S. from Rob:  This is Stephanie’s last week working with us as a
shared Environment for the America’s intern, successfully juggling
responsibilities with us, BLM and the USFWS.  We greatly appreciate
all of her hard work and for providing the updates this summer!

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[obol] August 12: Final Yaquina Head Murre and Cormorant Update

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