One of the claims about “global climate change” is that it will affect the normal ranges of flora and fauna of our planet. Well, with a very cold northern hemisphere this winter, that seems to happening. A bird not seen (as a mature adult) in Massachusetts since the 1800’s , an Ivory Gull, normally an inhabitant of arctic areas, has been spotted. Here are the details from the Plymouth, MA Patriot-Ledger. – Anthony
GULL-LOVER’S TRAVELS: Birdwatchers flock to Plymouth to spot rare specimen
PLYMOUTH — Jan 28th, 2009
The temperatures were in the single digits, but not low enough to keep the gawkers away. A celebrity was in town, behind the East Bay Grille, a visitor not seen in these parts in decades, if not longer.
But these weren’t paparazzi, and this wasn’t a Hollywood star. Rather, they were avid birdwatchers – about 20 in all – braving the frigid air as they scanned the bay and the edges of the breakwater with binoculars and spotting scopes.
And they would be rewarded, catching a glimpse of a glimpse of a rare, fully mature ivory gull. A birdwatcher reported seeing one in Plymouth last week, and another was spotted at Eastern Point Lighthouse in Gloucester. From Sunday through Tuesday, the avian visitor was a regular in Plymouth, much to the delight of birdwatchers, who came from near and far in hopes of adding the extremely rare bird to their life list.
Ivory gulls normally stay well above Newfoundland, living on Arctic ice where they follow whales and polar bears to feed on the scraps and carcasses they leave behind after making a kill.
Until this year, the last report of a fully mature ivory gull in Massachusetts was in the 1800s. Three immature birds were seen in the 1940s. In 1976, another immature bird had been spotted in Rockport.
Russell Graham of Dallas is flying in Friday for a three-day visit. He’s hoping the gull will still be in town when he arrives.
“The ivory gull is one of a handful of birds that every birder dreams of seeing but almost no one has.,” he said. “This isn’t a dream that’s confined to North America. There is also an immature bird in France that is causing the same reaction there. There are a couple of places where you can go in the summer and expect to see one but they are distant and expensive – Svalbard on Spitsbergen, Norway and Pond Inlet on Baffin Island, Canada.
“I never thought I would have the chance to see one and I can’t pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
If the gull is gone, Graham will consider a side trip to Nova Scotia, where two adult ivory gulls have been seen recently. “I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed,” he said.
John Fox of Arlington, Va., and his friend Adam D’Onofrio of Petersburg drove more than eight hours on Sunday to see the gull.
“No bird this morning,” Fox said a day later, shaking his head. “We left Virginia at three in the morning yesterday and arrived here 20 minutes too late.”
On Sunday morning, hundreds of people got to observe and photograph the gull as it fed on a chicken carcass someone put out on one of the docks in the parking lot. The bird stayed until 11 a.m., then flew across the harbor. It was not seen again for the rest of the day.
“We arrived at 11:20 and spent the rest of the afternoon in the parking lot, hoping it would return,” Fox said.
They stayed at Pilgrim Sands Motel and arrived at the parking lot early Monday morning for one more chance to see the ivory gull before returning to Virginia. Fox said it was his first time in Massachusetts. If he didn’t see the bird, he said, at least he could see Plymouth Rock before they left for home.
“That’s how it goes sometimes,” he said. “We don’t always see what we come for, but it’s nice to see some of the sights when you travel to a new area in hopes of seeing a rare bird.”
As Fox was planning his exit, a commotion caught his attention. One of the birders pointed toward the sky and said with a shout, “There it is.”
The pure white gull was flying toward the parking lot, silhouetted against a bright blue sky. Someone in the crowd announced for the record the gull had arrived at 7:45 a.m.
The bird flew in circles overhead, then landed on a snow bank in the middle of the parking lot. Cameras clicked and the birders “oohed and ahhhed” each time the ivory gull switched positions.
“Look how white it is,” someone said. “It’s got black feet, black eyes and a grayish-black beak,” said another.
The gull eyeballed the chicken carcass, still there from the day before, but it didn’t eat. Instead, it flew to the railing along the edge of the boat ramp and perched with a group of sea gulls. The photographers followed, changing positions to get the best lighting.
Fox stood with the group, talking with other birdwatchers, as the gull sat peacefully on the railing, observing all the people gathered around it. Was it worth the long drive up from Virginia?
“It sure was,” Fox said with a smile.
Mike Bryant (08:50:35) :
Here is good review of the status of the polar bear by a scientist long involved in the research on the topic. Dr. Mitchell did a credible job of discussing the pitfalls in both climate and polar bear research.
http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=2571
Don’t forget the financial incentives of the natives in the northern parts of Canada. Dr. Mitchell acknowledges the hardship hunting bans can have on the local economy in those parts. The Inuit are quite poor and do not want to give up what has been a good source of income for their people. They naturally want to see good population growth, or at least enough growth to permit them to continue their hunting. Very similar to the response of the fishing communities of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to the news of the impending cod population collapse. The warnings were ignored and now the fishing industries have collapsed. There truly is a depression in those regions now.
The above illustrates the real need for science to be objective and careful in its pronouncements when commenting on topics affecting people’s day-to-day lives. If you overstate your position, which is what I believe is happening now with AGW, you lose your credibility when you later comment on topics in which you are correct, such as with the cod populations.
In any event, Dr. Mitchell demonstrates the polar bear is doing quite well in most of the areas where we have accurate population counts. In two population groups, not so well. Although in one of them, Western Hudson Bay, the decline has been halted.
Jack
Larus hyperboreus and Larus glaucoides have also been seen in Portugal!
Ecotretas
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2009/02/invasao-de-gaivotas-hiperboreas-e.html
Kaboom; Are you for real with that post? If so, you have no idea about any of this. May pay you to get up to speed on some of the issues. Seems that there are more polar bears now than ever before and the arctic ice has not all melted.
“The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.” Who reported this? the IPCC, the Meteorological Office…. No, that was the US Weather Bureau in 1922.
TWC just showed a bit about the freeze in Florida. Pictures included one of a large herd of manatees (a non-herding species…) cozied up in the warm water from a power plant discharge keeping warm… So much for ‘thermal pollution’…
(Hey, anything that helps manatees survive, I’m all for…)
Dear, dear,
The occurence of Ivory Gulls in southern latitudes has nothing to do with any climate, wheather or whatever. They are able to wander long distances and vagrants can occur anywhere.
And we are talking about the toughest of toughest birds in the Northern Hemisphere. It was even seen breeding on rocky cliffs facing the North in Greenland, otherwise it could be too warm for them!
As far as Europe concerned, the occurrence is randomly distributed over the years, e.g The Netherlands has three records, in 1987, 1990 (I saw that one) and in 1994 (must check on the last one). In the UK it occurs almost annually, mostly in the Northern Isles, but also more southerly as happened e.g. in 1986 in Yorkshire (saw that one too).
Which birds we get in Europe is not clear, they could come from Spitsbergen, Greenland or from Northern Canada. The 1990 bird in the Netherlands occurred after a stormy period with northwestern gales, the 1987 bird in a cold winter, with other birds originating from Northern Russia/Siberia rather from the Nearctic region (Gyr Falcon, Steller’s Eider). The bird in France is accompanied by a Kumlien’s Gull, a gull well known in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in winter.
So don’t spill your beans, the occurrence of this individual in Plymouth, or the one in France has most probably nothing to do with the cold this winter!
By the way Anthony, the map you showed, only shows the Nearctic region. It occurs in the Palearctic too (Svalbard or Spitsbergen we like to call it in the Netherlands – once ours!).
Thanks Jack for your coments re Dr. Taylor and the polar bear populations. I’m not a biologist but I’m puzzled that melting ice would threaten the polar bear. If the ice melted, wouldn’t the seals have to come ashore where the polar bears, presented with a linear distribution of seals, could feast without interuption. Perhaps we should be concerned more about the seal populations.
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