The first three nests with one egg each were observed this morning on the Deslauriers Island colony. This happenned on April 16 in 2015. Despite an early spring arrival, the cold weather and snow has slowed down the beginning of the nesting season.
Our faithful observer, Raymond Belhumeur, spotted BP2C on the Chambly Bassin this morning at the same place where he saw this bird on 30 March 2013 and 7 April 2014. An early season!
A paper published today in Avian Conservation & Ecology shows that Ring-billed Gulls now arrive in Quebec earlier and lay earlier than four decades ago and this may be related to climate warming. doi.org/10.5751/ACE-00821-110101
Klemens Gasser from Brooklyn, NY, reported the first sighting of the year. He photographed B84P on the beach at Coney Island Creek Park (https://flic.kr/p/ChV9cw).
Our field crew and our network of volunteers have tallied 3,675 sightings of 2,031 marked individuals during 2015. As part of her Master’s project on gull survival, Marie-Claude Murray have observed over 1,500 marked birds, mostly in the Île Deslauriers colony. She was assisted by our senior technician, Francis St-Pierre, who registered 564 sightings. David Adrien from Groveland, MA, and Raymond Belhumeur from Longueuil, QC, were the most active observers reporting 273 and 129 marked birds, respectively. Thanks to all our contributors.
