Page:Bird-lore Vol 06.djvu/117



A GULL ISLAND

The Herring Gull on Lake Superior

By BAYARD H. CHRISTY and NORMAN McCLINTOCK

wnn photographs lmm mum by the authors

HE Herring Gull is the common Gull of our northern coasts, lakes

I and rivers, South of Maine, northern New York and the Great

Lake region, the Herring Gull is usually seen in winter only.

Therefore it is characterized in some southern localities as Winter Gull, in contradistinction to the Summer or Laughing Gull.

A large colony of Herring Gulls now breeds undisturbed upon an in- accessible small group ol about half a dozen granitic islands, extending east and west, and lying some two or three miles off the south shore of Lake Superiori The larger islands of the group rise two hundred to three hundred feet above the lake and are wooded. The smaller islands, which are the most easterly, are mere low crags that are broken and seamed. All the islands are heavily glaciated

Upon July 22, 1903, we visited one of these smaller islands, which is about one hundred yards long, less than half as wide and scarcely twenty feet high, The vegetation is limited to lichens, grasses and small plants, which ﬁnd but scant routing in the crannies, Here the accompanying photographs were taken, excepting that of the ﬂying Gulls, which was ob— tained on the St. Mary‘s river.

From a distance, the island was seen to be dotted white with several hundred of these beautiful Gulls, which rose as we approached and, screaming constantly, kept circling overhead, while we remained.

Upon our landing. a number of young Gulls, unable to ﬂy, went scrambling and tumbling down the rocks, and swam several hundred yards out into the lake, to where a number of the old birds had settled down Occasionally, one of the parent birds, whose young we disturbed, would swoop down close to our heads,

We found a dozen or twenty nests, which were placed wherever a broad level surface aﬁcrded a site upon the higher portions of the rocks,

These nests were composed of dried grass and pine needles and a few

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