This week on Metinic we have spent a few of our afternoons scouring the coastlines for Black Guillemot burrows. Black Guillemots are the only bird of the Alcid family (the Puffin family!) nesting on Metinic since other Alcids prefer to stay farther offshore. Black Guillemots nest in rock crevices along the shorelines and in order to monitor their nesting success we have to find their burrows! A burrow with an egg in it is pictured in our previous post “Eggcellent”.
As we were hunting for burrows, Charlie happened to stick his head in a crevice that was occupied, not by a Black Guillemot, but by a Great Black-backed Gull Chick! The chick was probably only a couple days old and screamed defiantly at us as we ogled at its cuteness. We have also seen our first few Common Eider ducklings of the season swimming on the water with their mothers. These groups of Eider ducklings and mothers are called “Creches”. We have certainly been excited to have our first tastes of what is to come; chicks galore!
Great Black-Backed Gull chick!
~The Metinic Crew, Jennie and Charlie
OMG… adorable! Looks like a fluffy dalmation chick! Looking forward to more cuteness as you find them~
Oh My! So adorable! It must be exciting to have some chicks. How long before you get more? Does the weather effect the incubation time? The video was awesome. Melody was looking around to see what the noise was. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Hopefully we will be getting more chicks this coming week! Though were hoping for Tern chicks this time around, wait until you see how cute they are! Disturbance from predators influences incubation time more than anything else because the parent thermoregulates for the eggs. The longer an adult is off the nest in a given day, the longer overall incubation time will be. But I think it’s fair to assume that cold wet weather could have an additive effect on incubation time while the egg is exposed, but we don’t have any data to back that up.
The video really makes the post come alive. Some of my students were interested in the posts, but all of them were riveted to the video and played it over and over, speculating about whether it was mad at you or afraid of you. Any time you can add video, please do it It makes us feel like we are there.
That’s the plan! Glad your students were thrilled!