Re: [SBB] Black terns

[Chuq Von Rospach <[[email protected]]>]

On Aug 11, 2007, at 11:57 PM, Garrett Lau wrote:

> I was there this morning (Saturday, August 11), too. I watched the
> Black Skimmers on the second island for 45 minutes. During that time,
> the adults flew four times to chase away egrets and gulls. They also
> sometimes walked out to the edge of the 10-yard perimeter that you
> mentioned.

Because I was curious, I spent some time looking at the list archive  
-- I vaguely remember a discussion on the list a few years back about  
whether our population of skimmers was self-sustained and that there  
was some thought it was being supplied from southern california.

I didn't find that discussion, but I did find a few previous mentions  
of Black Skimmer chicks, one in mid july 2003, and one in early  
August, 2000, both in the shoreline area (there are probably others,  
don't take that as complete). The A16 chicks seem to be the first on  
the list not at Shoreline, FWIW, and we've also had some discussion  
this season about a possible nest on the island at Shoreline lake.

I also found, completely out of the blue, a note from 2000 where Tom  
Ryan was with a SoCal biologist studying skimmers asking about  
banding info. I went and looked at the pictures from Garrett, and as  
far as I can tell, the breeding skimmers have no bands. Point of  
trivia...

Going back through the list archives, it seems to me that we had a  
fairly stable but small population here for years centered around  
Shoreline part of the year, and wintering up out of sight around  
Redwood Shores, but in the last year or two, they seem to be  
splitting into groups and spreading out, with pairs over at Shoreline  
and A16, and I believe they've been seen at Radio a bit. Indications  
are they're breeding and the population is growing. Does that seem  
right to others?







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