Many marine biologists earn their living interpreting the natural
world for non-experts. This job requires the ability to bring people closer
to nature through words.
You're a marine biologist who guides nature
tours on land and sea in Alaska. Using the information below, prepare what
you would say to the people on your tour at each of the following moments:
Gull Island harbors
a remarkable colony of seabirds. Kittiwakes, murres, gulls, cormorants, puffins
and guillemots call the island home during the long summer days.
Every
year, thousands of people travel by boat to the island to witness the spectacle
of nesting seabirds. Eight different species, totaling more than 20,000 seabirds,
live on Gull Island during the summer months.
A typical season might
see 10,000 black-legged kittiwakes, 8,500 common murres, 1,200 glaucous-winged
gulls, 140 pelagic cormorants, 16 red-faced cormorants, 100 tufted puffins,
20 horned puffins and two pigeon guillemots.
Among the most abundant
seabirds on Gull Island are the gulls known as black-legged kittiwakes. Named
for their nasal ki-ti-waak call notes, kittiwakes live 10 to 20 years and
raise one to two young each summer. Unlike most gulls, kittiwakes spend most
of their lives at sea.
Less numerous and more exotic are the two species
of puffins on the island, the tufted puffin and horned puffin. The large,
vividly colored beaks of puffins function as ornaments for courtship during
the summer months. They become smaller and less colorful after breeding.
Puffins
forage for fish by diving to depths of as much as 400 feet. They use their
wings to "fly" through the water with their tails spread and feet extended
backwards to aid in steering.
Adult female glaucous-winged gulls have
an orange dot on their beak. Why? The chicks are attracted to peck at the
bright orange dot on the beak of their mother. This alerts her to provide
food.
Gulls will eat almost anything. They act as scavengers on beaches
and garbage dumps.
Sometimes they eat the eggs and young of other birds.
Young gulls, which usually are darker than adults, can take as long as four
years to mature.
Millions of birds migrate from many parts of the world
to nest in Alaska during the summer. Seabirds begin appearing around Gull
Island in May. Large numbers "raft up" together in the waters around Gull
Island before nesting on rocks at the end of May.
Seabirds begin leaving
the island by the end of August. In mid-September, seemingly overnight, the
island becomes deserted. Most of the birds that inhabit Gull Island spend
the rest of the year at sea, where they are seldom observed.
In general,
their migration patterns are not well known. Scientists think the birds spend
the winter in a wide range of areas, from the edge of pack ice to the waters
off Baja, California.