Quarry Curiosities 1 - The Ring-billed Gull

Or, "Life below the Surface "

Just like on the shoreline, most of the gulls you're likely to see on the water and ledges of the Halibut Point Quarry are either Herring or Great Black-backed Gulls. They gather there sedately resting from the hurly-burly at sea.

The supplicating newcomer at center

Last year about this time a Ring-billed Gull tried to join the established group.

The Ring-billed Gull sitting high in the water

Perhaps its tattooed look about the head and neck offended the clean-patterned majority, or perhaps it was the perky buoyancy.

Pleading for acceptance

Entreaties shunned

Forlorn isolation

Though it failed to ingratiate itself the Ring-bill proved agile in the air.

 

It darted to ripples appearing now and then on the quarry surface.



 

While the other gulls preened it chased minnows leaping from the water.



The little fish were evidently forced up by a predator below. It dove on them from above.

The Ring-bill stayed around for a week last summer profiting from a fish population previously unknown to me, and inaccessible to the customary gulls. Then it disappeared. Curiously, I haven't seen it on the quarry pond again.

I began to wonder what else might be going on down there.

Next week: the Red-necked Grebe