Embedded Files
2019-04-12 at 11:20am -- this website (one very long page) will be updated regularly, during March and April, to complete this trip report.
This beautiful Iceland Gull was one of four which we had in the large offshore gull flock, which also contained 3,000 Ring-billed Gulls, 200 Herring Gulls, 2 Bonaparte's Gulls, 60 Brant, 410 Greater Scaup, 2 Lesser Scaup, 23 Surf Scoter and 1 Common Loon...
The worm-like organisms we are trying to identify (evidence and most experts increasingly leaning toward nereid polychaete worms)... apparently at least 10-20mm long... swimming in the yellow-green world of photosynthesis all around them...
THE KEY QUESTIONS: Here are the key questions for this LIS trip:
- Can we find large flocks of gulls surface-feeding in LIS during our trip? Including some uncommon gulls?
- What are these thousands of gulls eating in LIS (Long Island Sound) every March-April?
- Are Little Gulls, Bonaparte's Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, Herring Gulls and Iceland Gulls eating the same things?
- What are Gannets and other birds eating in LIS? What are seals eating in LIS?
- What is the entire LIS food web (the network of food chains)? What are all the components, and which eat which?
- How does this LIS food web change from month-to-month (the seasonal cycles)? What drives these changes?
- Is this LIS food web changing from year-to-year, from decade-to-decade? And are the gull numbers decreasing? Why?
- Are phytoplankton increasing due to CO2 increasing in the air and water? CO2 causing "algae" increases
- Can we rev-up an LIS coalition (a working taskforce of birders, citizen-scientists, scientists, organizations, etc) to work together to learn more about these LIS questions, and to share all the results widely?
THE BOTTOM LINE: We had great weather on March 9th, more than 3 thousand gulls, and with good camera work we apparently found a new component in the gull-plankton food web, some marine worms, probably nereids, but we did not conclusively prove that those thousands of gulls are eating those worms or barnacles or anything, or if the LIS ecosystem is changing and how it is changing. This is progress, however, as is our increasing partnership with multiple scientific organizations, forming an effective working task-force to learn more about Long Island Sound (and to model its ecosystem). We look forward to more of this cooperation and progress next year. Thank you all.
BACKGROUND: Why are we doing this, this project, this trip? Why all this effort? Why did about 40 people spend $80@ and invest six hours to go a mile offshore to look at a large number (thousands) of common gulls pecking at the water? Because this is a very uncommon phenomenon and it happens every March-April, in pretty much only one or two places on the east coast of North America (on this scale), as far as we can tell. Why is this happening here and not in multiple other places? Is there something special, perhaps unique, about these LIS Long Island Sound waters? And how long has this been happening; when was it first noticed, by who? We need to find a "window" into this opaque marine world of LIS, to understand the whole ecosystem better, and studying this gull-plankton phenomenon has become our "window". Remember that our gull-plankton phenomenon is impacted by being sandwiched in between runoff from the CT and NY watersheds, the Atlantic Ocean through The Race, the benthic seafloor, and the changeable atmosphere above! Those varied influences make the Long Island Sound a very complex estuary system, and a fascinating laboratory, which might just be signaling something to us -- and we need to pay attention.
Many people felt the need to learn more about this gull-surface-feeding phenomenon, including some scientists and citizen-scientists. These interested participants came from one museum, one aquarium, several universities, and several birding organizations. About forty of us went out on March 9th 2019, found the phenomenon, of several thousand common gulls (plus some brant and sea ducks), about a mile off Stratford CT, swimming on the water's surface, pecking away at something(s) near the surface of the water. We used binoculars, cameras and nets to learn more about what the birds were feeding on. We could not confirm any fish in this food chain, but we did find evidence of various plankton and (in a new discovery on our March 9, 2019 trip) some apparent marine worms swimming around. The thousands of gulls are apparently attracted to one or several of these food items. Our hoped-for followup actions will include determining which (perhaps several) of these items the gulls are actually eating, and why gulls are not massing to eat these prey items elsewhere on the east coast. How we approach these questions will be the next chapter in this project, over the next year or two. Does this phenomenon have any significance? If yes, what might it be? TBD. And Thanks to everyone who is involved and supporting this project, including TMA The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, with their excellent research vessel and its ability to immediately display plankton we catch, through their microscope and onto a large screen in the main cabin (which was one of the reasons we sought this partnership).
THE ANNUAL MARINE SEASONAL CYCLE: This trip is an experiment, for us to learn more about the relatively understudied marine season of " late winter", of February and March (and at least to document a baseline of data for comparison in future trips, in future years and decades). The entire marine ecosystem, including birds (as well as fish, plankton, etc), is undergoing its annual major seasonal changes now, as one wave of plankton bloom cycles after another one, and the food chains of microscopic grazers and predators rev-up and respond. The winter winds and storms have pushed around the surface waters and destabilized the summer stratification of the seas, and reduced the temperature difference between the always cold bottom waters and the newly cold surface waters of winter. The resulting mixing of increased dissolved oxygen (DO, aided by cold water's capacity to hold more gases than warm summer waters) and nutrients (especially nitrates and phosphates and mostly the same ones needed by terrestrial plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_nutrition ) is fueling these plankton life-cycle blooms, starting with the explosion of photosynthesis in the phytoplankton, often beginning in mid-winter. The rains and thaws of March-April also increase runoff from the watershed into the estuary, often with nitrates and other "nutrients" to fuel the blooms. This late winter period is perhaps the most dynamic time in the seas, and we have chosen this cold time of year to go out and try to learn more about what is happening! By the way, these gull species already know what is happening, in the pelagic water column, and along the shore's intertidal zone, and that is why they are here now, fueling-up on multiple trophic levels of the revved-up marine food web.
MARINE MYSTERIES: Please be aware that science is still discovering unexpected new things about the marine world, such as this new species of large whale, just discovered a few years ago! New species of whale discovered!! This whale, Omura's Whale, was discovered in 2015, and found to be widespread across tropical waters! "Scientists said the finding is a reminder of how little we actually know about what goes on in the world’s oceans."
HEADLINE: Our 42-person March 9th cruise in LIS (Long Island Sound, CT, USA) found 3,000 gulls 1.5 miles offshore, and photos of some new unidentified worm-like organisms (see green image above, and far below) swimming quickly, with the gulls and plankton. Look for some answers here, at this website, in April-May.
THE MARITIME AQUARIUM (TMA) & THEIR APRIL 4TH EVENT: Many thanks to the TMA (https://www.maritimeaquarium.org/) for everything on March 9th!! The TMA is offering an International Ocean Film Tour on April 4th 6pm-930pm. It looks most interesting: International Ocean Film Tour
OTHER PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS which you may want to join or contribute to :
- HAS, Hartford Audubon Society , this is/was a HAS field trip -- special thanks to Maggie Peretto, President of HAS!
- COA, Connecticut Ornithological Association . Partner in early planning and trip design. This trip provided input to a COA Research Committee Project about gulls in LIS.
- CAS, Connecticut Audubon Society . Partner in planning and execution.
- UConn, University of Connecticut Marine Sciences . Plankton analyses and advice.
- YPM, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History . Invertebrate Zoology Dept.
- UMass, Univ of Massachusetts Amherst, Dept. of Environmental Conservation . Here is a message from Prof. Michelle Staudinger, of UMass (who was onboard with us on March 9th): "Please do share my work email [ask me for it] with the folks from the trip if they ask. Also, please circulate our website: http://necsc.umass.edu/ and remind folks that I will be giving a free webinar on Wednesday April, 3rd at noon: http://necsc.umass.edu/webinars/upcoming. They can also sign up for our mailing list (~2 emails a month) here: http://necsc.umass.edu/content/join-our-mailing-list"
- CT DEEP, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Granting us permits and planning the next stages in analysis of the gull stomach contents.
REQUEST TO ALL 40+ TRIP PARTNERS, for a few of your photos : If you were on-board with us on March 9th and have any photographs of the surface of the water, showing any plankton (and hopefully any of the slightly larger worm-like organisms) in the surface water, please send them to robben99@gmail.com to help us identify those worm-like organisms, which were not caught in our nets.
UPDATE MESSAGE FOR ALL (as of March 23): To recap, regarding what those thousands of gulls are surface-feeding on in LIS (usually in March and into April, often a mile or two offshore, usually off central or western CT), we were delighted to finally come up with video and still photos of some marine organisms larger than those zillions of barnacles (cyprids, 0.5-to-1mm), but what are these newly-photographed animals?? The fascinating mystery of these worm-like organisms is not yet resolved 100%. We are sending their video (see below) and still photos to numerous marine experts, asking for their opinions, and for the opinions of everybody. Some have already voted one way or another (the worm-theory has more votes than the larval-fish-theory, at the moment). We will assemble all the results, and publish them here, right at the top, over the next few weeks.
UPDATE MESSAGE FOR ALL 40+ TRIP PARTNERS (as of March 16): Thank you all for making our March 9th LIS cruise so enjoyable. Lets plan to do it again next year (again with the outstanding Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, and their excellent ship). If you have any comments or suggestions (for improvements perhaps) please email them to robben99@gmail.com. If you have any of your photos at websites you would like to share, please let us know (we already listed a few links far below). This website will continue to grow every week, as we learn more about some of the LIS (Long Island Sound) mysteries, such as why are some parts of LIS so unusually attractive to large flocks of gulls, rafting together in the thousands? What are those gulls eating and what is everything going on in those late winter waters? Meanwhile a lot of material has already been added below (as we try to document a March 9th "snapshot" of LIS, including its birds, plankton, fish, etc.), including links to Frank Mantlik's nine eBird reports for our 3/9 trip (Thank You Frank!). Plus the surprising photographs where, for the first time, we discovered apparent worm (or fish larvae?) swarms in with those gulls ! Is that the gulls' top priority, catching and eating those "worms"?? More to come as these mysteries unfold! And on March 15th we started the UConn plankton analysis: Prof.H.Dam and L.Norton focusing on zooplankton, and Prof. G.McManus focusing on phytoplankton, micro-zooplankton, and those apparent worms. Thank you all! Tom Robben.
PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF WATER SAMPLES COLLECTED:
On March 15, 2019 scientists at University of Connecticut, Dept of Marine Sciences, identified the following taxa in the water samples from our March 9th trip:
- Barnacles (mostly cyprids): Barnacle
Copepods (relative numbers estimated by Lydia Norton, in Prof. Hans Dam's lab at Univ.Connecticut):
- Acartia hudsonica: Acartia hudsonica mostly this species (about 80 for every 100 barnacle cyprids).
- Temora longicornis: Temora longicornis (about 60 for every 100 barnacle cyprids).
- Parvocalanus sp. copepods: parvocalanus copepods (about 5 for every 100 barnacle cyprids).
Phytoplankton (ID and photographs provided by Prof. George McManus of Marine Sciences, UnivConnecticut):
- chain diatoms: chain-forming diatoms mostly.
- Others shown in photographs below.
Possible Worms, identified from photos and video only, not collected: TBD, probably a reproductive swarm (epitokes) of Nereid worms, or Syllid worms , or possibly larval fish (Sand Lance?), or possibly some other invertebrate?
We need to focus on these possible worms (or fish larvae?) and to try to identify them, since they may be what the gulls are going after. Therefore we created a NEW 25-second video, slowed down to one-tenth speed, so you can see each frame more closely (this video was originally taken at 30 fps frames per second, and now displayed at 3fps). You can see that new slow motion video at this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xovi2-FO5eY&feature=youtu.be
More information coming in the next weeks, etc.
SUMMARY: Our plankton-net sampling in and around a 3,000-gull flock more than a mile off Long Beach CT revealed incredible numbers of barnacle larvae, phytoplankton and some copepods. Unsatisfied that these plankton nets were capturing everything, we also did underwater video recording (a ten minute video-camera-tow), and thereby discovered something else: swarms of possible worm-like species ( ? Polychaete worms and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitoky ?? ) presumably preying on the barnacles (or/and on the phytoplankton), and themselves possibly being preyed upon by gulls, brant, scaup, etc. This discovery is our (new) working theory and will need more confirmation.
In other words: The NEW discovery of this trip was apparent WORMS (or Sand Lance larvae?) swimming around among the zillions of plankton and thousands of gulls. You can see them in the video clip, via the link at this website. This is somewhat of an unfolding mystery, including whether the gulls and brant are eating these worms (and/or the smaller plankton). It will all be reported at this website, as we try to figure it out, over the next weeks and perhaps months.
RESULTS of our March 9, 2019 trip (very preliminary - this trip report will grow as we fill in the facts over the next few days and weeks) : We had great people (3 Aquarium staff and 39 birders/scientists), great weather, great ship, great Aquarium partnership, great plankton and very good birds (about 3 thousand gulls off Bridgeport and Long Beach, CT including four Iceland Gulls and 2 Bonaparte's Gulls)... covering 40 miles in six hours, on a new luxury research vessel.... and see our GPS route map below, from 10am to 4pm... We stopped at the far eastern end of our route, off Long Beach, Stratford, CT, took plankton samples (barnacles [mostly cyprid larvae], copepods, diatoms, dinoflagellates, etc) and took underwater videos, showing the photosynthetic yellow-green world of phytoplankton, and swarms of small thin worm-like swimming creatures... why did these "worms" not show up in our plankton tows, and what are they? Is this the missing link in the gull-barnacle food chain? Note the 1-millimeter barnacle cyprid several photos below, surrounded by phytoplankton (mostly diatoms in chains)...
Remember that one purpose of this trip and project is to use gull behavior as a "window" into the obscure seasonal dynamics of life-cycle blooms of several life-forms in LIS (Long Island Sound), including several species of plankton, in hopes of learning more about possible multi-decade changes in LIS. For a start, we need to learn more about the complex series of multiple "spring blooms" in Long Island Sound, including various different phytoplankton, barnacles, copepods, worms, etc. and the responses of the gulls. And is there something special about the Spring Blooms in LIS which is attracting so many gulls? The very approximate annual cycle diagram (shown above) is misleading, in oversimplifying The Spring Bloom into one thing (and probably showing it too late in the typical LIS year). As we learn more, it will be presented in this website...
PRIOR TO THE TRIP: Here is Maggie Peretto (President of HAS) and Lou Zicari (Senior Captain for this ship, for TMA, The Maritime Aquarium) inside the ship's main cabin...
BEGINNING THE ACTUAL TRIP:
BEGINNING THE ACTUAL TRIP:
Here is a photo of us ( 42 on board) departing Norwalk Harbor, heading offshore for six hours on March 9, 2019... Frank Mantlik (leader of international birding tours) with two-tone green cap, and Ernie Harris (long-time field trips chairman for HAS Hartford Audubon Society) with binoculars raised... and yours-truly, in red jacket, worrying about where we can find another Sabine's Gull (an inside joke)...
This is Larry Flynn, the guru of Norwalk CT waters and the historian (along with Frank Mantlik) of these large gull flocks surface feeding in LIS. He started our trip on the microphone with explanations of these waters and this history...
Here is our 40-mile round-trip actual route on March 9th, in blue, first going SW around all the Norwalk Islands, before heading ENE east northeast...
We were blessed with the most beautiful weather out on the water (sunny clear, 39F, ENE wind at 5mph), on this modern two-level ship... where, from the top deck, and much to the chagrin of Flat Earth believers, we took the following marine photograph to prove to landlubbers that the planet Earth is noticeably spherical! (-:
Here is Nick Bonomo, one of the world-class bird experts onboard, and co-leading this trip, along with Frank Mantlik and other widely known birders who lead tours around the world... we are lucky to have this exceptional team on board...
Here (below) is where we finally spot a long line of white birds on the water, about a mile away, a flock of about 3,000 gulls more than one mile off Long Beach, around 11:30am, and are approaching from a long distance. Here is Frank Gallo in yellow, another international tour leader, and the author of the great new book, Birding In Connecticut (radio interview with Frank Gallo)...
The red oval shows the location of the large gull flock, swimming in the water... more than a mile off Long Beach, Stratford, CT...
When we got to the half-mile-long line of white birds we found several species "surface feeding" on something. The feeding birds included about 3,000 Ring-billed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Greater Scaup, Brant (the following photos of a part of the large raft are thanks to C.Wood and F.Mantlik). The top photo shows about 500 of the 3,000 gulls in that raft...
Note that because this large raft of gulls is more than one mile offshore, it is almost impossible to see from land, from Long Beach, Stratford. Jory Teltser was at Long Beach at this time and could see our ship, looking into the sun, but he could only see about 20 gulls from shore (he was able to ID the Bonaparte's Gulls when they flew up off the surface of the water), not the 3,000 in our flock, in the large raft on the water, until some of them flew up off the water...
Four Iceland Gulls were part of this surface feeding raft, including this beauty, photographed by P.Comins...
PLANKTON (zooplankton and phytoplankton):
PLANKTON (zooplankton and phytoplankton):
Here is what we saw in the water all around the ship, swarms of tiny dots (mostly 1mm barnacle larvae) and other plankton, uncountably many (thanks to Frank Mantlik and Patrick Comins for these two shots, in that order). These are telephoto pictures of two square feet of water. Most of those dots are 1mm barnacle larvae, AND there are also other larger, longer organisms there (10 or 20 or more millimeters long?), some of which you can see in this photo. What are they, and how have they eluded our plankton net tows? They swam away from the pressure wave of the approaching plankton net? Is that what the gulls and Brant are searching for among these zillions of plankton?
Are these plankton especially abundant in this part of LIS? Why? What may be unique about this area of LIS? Is it something about the benthic substrate here? Or is this abundance caused by something in the currents coming out of the Pequonnock River and Bridgeport Harbor?
PLANKTON 101: Here are some simplified definitions, including pelagic vs benthic, nekton vs plankton, phytoplankton vs zooplankton, meroplankton vs holoplankton, photosynthesis vs chemosynthesis vs metabolism, etc. Benthic refers to the bottom of the ocean or estuary, while pelagic refers to the entire water column above the bottom, right up to the surface. Nekton are organisms strong enough and fast enough to swim against the water current, such as fish, while plankton cannot swim at all or rapidly enough to oppose the marine currents. Holoplankton are organisms which are always plankton, while meroplankton are only plankton for part of their life and they are nekton (or benthic sessile) for other parts of their life (e.g., as adults). All living organisms metabolize, transforming oxygen and their food (organic compounds) into energy and carbon dioxide. Some organisms (e.g., "plants"), use sunlight and photosynthesis to transform carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen gas, at least for some of the time. Other organisms are able to use chemosynthesis to generate energy and organic compounds for themselves from chemical reactions without sunlight or photosynthesis. Phytoplankton are those plankton which perform photosynthesis (aka "plants"), while zooplankton are plankton which do not. Zooplankton feed on phytoplankton ("grazers") or/and on other zooplankton. Algae, by the way, can be a confusing term, and no definition of "algae" is generally accepted by all scientists, so it is not used here (some people use algae to mean all eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms, thus excluding cyanobacteria, which are prokaryotes, which ironically are the probable ancestral source of all plastids found in "algae").
Ten minutes before this underwater video, and in the same waters, Capt. Nicki Rosenfeld and Lauren Salvioli (both TMA Aquarium staff) executed a brief plankton tow, and here are the specifics of that tow:
Plankton net: 20 cm diameter, 80-micron mesh
Tow length: 3 minutes
Tow GPS:
Start: N 41° 07.483 W 073 ° 09.223 @ 12:29
Stop: N 41° 07.522 W 073 ° 09.179 @ 12:32
Depth: Surface - 20cm
Speed: 1.3 - 1.8 kts
Surface Temp: 42° F
Depth of area at that time: 35-45 ft
Tide: Incoming, high @ 1:00p
FULL MOON ON MARCH 20, 2019, eleven days after this trip.
Here is Lauren Salvioli (Aquarium staff, in white cap) showing some of the plankton freshly caught/collected in that 3-minute plankton tow, in the waters around the large gull flock... and what a great modern ship to have these facilities onboard! This is one of the great benefits of partnering with TMA The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk: their helpful expert people, their ship, and their plankton-capture-and-display capabilities onboard. Prof.Michelle Staudinger is on far left, and on the right is Henry Legett from UMass and CTbirds.com guru Roy Harvey with sunglasses...
The following is a barnacle cyprid larva, about 1 millimeter in length, surrounded by the much smaller phytoplankton (diatoms in chains)...
After the barnacles, the second most numerous zooplankton in these waters was Acartia hudsonica, a typical copepod, about half the size of the barnacle. They are crustaceans, related to shrimp, and are an important food for larger animals...
Thanks to P.Comins for this image of copepods, and L.Salvioli for displaying them through the microscope and on the large screen. This copepod is a Centropages sp., ID thanks to L.Norton of UConn...
This photo, by P.Comins, shows the relatively large 1mm barnacle, and the smaller 2 or 3 copepods. The copepod in the center is a probable juvenile Acartia hudsonica. The apparently red circles are phytoplankton, and the color is caused by one of the compounds of chlorophyll ...
Thanks to P.Comins and L.Salvioli for these two photos of phytoplankton of several species...
Thanks to Prof.GeorgeMcManus for the following several phytoplankton photographs, from our plankton tow samples... starting with this centric diatom and the rectangular Ditylum ( Ditylum in wikipedia & Ditylum brightwelli ), then the next image of a Pleurosigma diatom, and then an image of Thalassiosira...
Phytoplankton studies in LIS have shown diatoms to be the majority type of organism....
Remember that phytoplankton are the "plants" of the sea (and the first plants on the planet!), where all the marine photosynthesis happens, producing about half the oxygen gas we breathe on the planet. They are the base of the marine food web (along with the chemosynthesis happening at hot vents and below ground), where carbon dioxide gas is captured and converted by sunlight and photosynthesis into the oxygen we breathe, and into the carbon-based sugars which are the foundation for all the carbon biomass in the sea (all the rest of the marine food web, plus some of the terrestrial food web, for those land predators which eat marine species). The phytoplankton are absolutely crucial for the planet's carbon cycle, upon which all life depends.
Note that one of the best sources of phytoplankton information is this site: Phyto'pedia
WORMS (or fish?):
WORMS (or fish?):
No "larger" organisms (larger than the 0.5 to 1mm barnacle cyprids) were visible in these plankton net samples, even though some were clearly visible looking down from the side of the ship. We lowered our GoPro/TrollPro video-photography equipment into the water for ten minutes, and towed it slowly, hoping it would photograph some larger organisms -- and it did !
The following underwater video and still photo (one frame extracted from a ten-minute video taken under and through those swarms of plankton) shows where-it-is-all-happening: the yellow-green world of Photosynthesis, where about half of the planet's breathable oxygen gas is being produced... this is REAL yellow-green color (not some photographic artifact), caused by one of the chlorophyll compounds, which is needed for photosynthesis.
Click on the following YouTube video to see the last 40 seconds of our ten-minute underwater video tow (especially the middle 1/3 of this 40-second video clip), as we reel the GoPro/TrollPro camera back in, and it ascends up to the surface, with the video revealing increasingly active and mobile life forms in a thin layer just below the surface (and click on the GEAR icon in the lower right, and then click on Speed and select 0.25, not Normal, to SLOW down the video speed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kydGcUqOg&feature=youtu.be
OR click on this link to see the last 25 seconds in one-tenth speed slow motion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xovi2-FO5eY&feature=youtu.be for a much clearer view of those "worms". Toggle the k key on your keyboard to stop and start the video playback.
Note the swarms of small thin worm-like swimming creatures (these are not barnacles or tiny plankton), which the GoPro video camera found only very near to the surface, as it was being reeled back in... why did these "worms" not show up in our plankton tows, and what are they? Are they worms, or larval fish (sand lance? a possibility proposed by Joe Schneirline and Ian Nisbet), or something else? Is this the missing link in the gull-barnacle food chain? Is this what the gulls and brant are primarily going after? This is a regular GoPro wide-angle (fixed focal length lens with deep depth-of-field) image, NOT a macrophoto, so those "worms" are not microscopic. Could they be swarming polychaete worms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitoky), with a few of the polychaete taxa that are known to swim among the plankton, or are they something else ?
A slow frame-by-frame analysis reveals swarms of small(?) thin worm-like swimming creatures (these are not barnacles or tiny plankton, and they are definitely self-propelled). You can do your own frame-by-frame viewing by clicking on this link: underwater video and then using your space bar to toggle pause-and-play multiple times (or then downloading the entire 77mb video file to be run frame-by-frame on your computer using QuickTimePlayer or some video app like that).
These are probably reproductive swarms (epitokes) of Nereid worms ( Nereididae & Nereid worm epitoke? & Nereid worms spawning & Nereid aka Rag Worms ), or of Syllid worms ( Syllidae ), but before we launch into a detailed study of marine worms, here is "A variety of marine worms", a plate by Das Meer by M.J.Schleiden (1804-1881). The sea is actually filled with worms, some of which swarm into the water column in Spring.
Eric Lazo-Wasem of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History (Division of Invertebrate Zoology) kindly provided this link to a video of a mass spawning of polychaete (nereis) worms: mass spawning of polychaete worms This video looks a lot like the organisms which we photographed on March 9th, and Eric is almost certain that our 3/9 organisms are swarming Nereis...
Another possibility is that these "worms" in the video are actually FISH, larvae or post-larvae of Ammodytes, sand lances, such as these post-larvae, although no dark eye-dot is obvious in our 3/9 video...
Are we missing something significant (perhaps those small worm-like creatures) in this food web ( click here to see the full-size food web diagram: draft LIS food web for gulls )? Something in trophic level 4, between the gulls (lets call that trophic level 5 - see the numbers on the left side of the diagram) and the barnacle larva in the lower level 3? The gulls are our "window" into the not-fully-understood LIS ecosystem...
Our interest in LIS plankton focuses on the following size range, mostly between 1cm (or 1mm) down to 1 micron (1µm, one millionth of a meter)...
Note that the generally accepted (and deliberately simplified) LIS food web (see the excellent LISS diagram below) shows gulls preying on fish and fish scraps, NOT on copepods and other small plankton...
In the Birds of North America (Ring-billed Gull in BNA) the diet of Ring-billed Gulls is described as follows. Notice Diploda (millipedes) and Earthworms, which are similar to marine worms in some ways:
FISH:
FISH:
If these long thin animals are not worms, might they be jellyfish of any kind? We saw a few box jellies, but they are circular and look nothing like those long thin animals/worms. Might they be fish or fish larvae? What fish are in LIS in winter and especially early March? Of course we have the very valuable LIS Trawl Survey data, covering April, May, June, plus September and October ( Long Island Sound Trawl Survey ), but it does not cover the winter months of January through March, so we are drafting a new list of LIS fish species which might be present in early March (which is largely based on inputs from David Molnar, Justin Davis, and Lauren Salvioli - thank you all). In the column called Pelagic we used three symbols: B=Benthic, S=Shallows, and P=Pelagic, to indicate where these fish spend most of their time in LIS waters. This is a draft and probably needs some additions and fine tuning. Inputs welcomed, especially where there are data gaps (e.g., the Winter Status for six species, in yellow: 05 Blowfish, 12 Cusk-eel, 17 Goosefish, 21 Hakes (Red and Spotted), 33 Skates, and 35 Spot), plus any missing fish species we may have overlooked for LIS waters -- please let us know ....
BIRDS:
BIRDS:
Here is one of Frank Mantlik's excellent eBird reports during our trip. This one where we found the large flock of gulls and other birds feeding on some plankton. This is checklist S53691053 from 11:43am for 33 minutes. Links to all of Frank's eBird checklists for this trip (THANK YOU Frank!) are also listed below...
Here are links to Frank Mantlik's nine! eBird reports for our March 9th trip - Thank You Frank!! Click to view each, including some photographs:
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691037 10:08am
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691050 10:38am
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691052 11:10am
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691053 11:43am
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691062 12:17pm
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691064 1:42pm
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691065 1:52pm
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691067 2:33pm
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53691068 3:10pm
Long Island Sound "summer birds" which were naturally and notably absent during our March 9th trip included: Common Tern, Roseate Tern, Least Tern, Laughing Gull, Osprey, and even Double-crested Cormorant.
MISCELLANEOUS:
MISCELLANEOUS:
Draft Summary Trip Report for HAS records: LIS Norwalk Gulls and Plankton Trip, on March 9, 2019. 39 of us, plus 3 crew from the Maritime Aquarium, assembled at the Norwalk CT dock around 9:30am and departed at 10am for a six-hour cruise in LIS Long Island Sound. It was a gorgeous sunny morning with temperatures in the 40s. Our primary goal was to find the large flock of gulls which often assembles in these waters in March, apparently feeding on plankton of various types. We wanted to learn more about what these thousands of gulls were eating, more than a mile offshore, and of course, to look for any special gull species, such as Little Gull. We sailed SW around the Norwalk Islands and then went east toward Stratford. As we approached Bridgeport-Stratford waters we could see a long line of white dots on the horizon, which turned out to be a flock of about 3,000 Ring-billed Gulls (also including 4 Iceland Gulls and 2 Bonaparte's Gulls), in waters teeming with zillions of 1mm plankton and a few jellyfish. A plankton tow in these waters revealed barnacle larvae, copepods, and phytoplankton (diatoms mostly). We also took an underwater video which revealed small mobile worm-like creatures, with their identity TBD. Are the gulls and other species eating barnacles and/or these "worms"? The plankton samples we collected will be analyzed at several laboratories this month, with some to be preserved at Yale's Peabody Museum. Everyone enjoyed the gulls, the plankton, the 39 people on board, the ship, the crew, and the amazingly beautiful warm sunny day on the water. Hopefully we can run this trip again next year, and will plan it soon. Details can be found at: https://sites.google.com/view/lisgullsplanktontrip/home
Respectfully submitted, Thomas Robben (robben99@gmail.com).
MANY GULLS ALSO AT HAMMONASSET THAT SAME DAY! About one thousand gulls were seen surface feeding at Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison, CT, in water just off the beach, about 30 miles east of our Stratford gull flock, on the same day March 9th. These gulls may have been feeding on the same species of organisms as the gulls we found at Stratford, but we have no way to be sure. It is interesting that these gulls found their prey items right off the beach, while at Stratford the gulls had to go more than a mile offshore. Thanks to Nancy Morand for this beautiful 3/9 photo at Hammo...
THANKS and MISCELLANY:
We are going to have to post a long list of THANKS to people who made this possible (including all the people who got on the P.A. microphone and made the trip more fun and educational : N.Bonomo, P.Comins, L.Flynn, F.Gallo, T.Green, E.Harris (long-time HAS Field Trip Chairman who encouraged this decade of HAS pelagic trips), F.Mantlik (who was doing eBird logging plus multiple other jobs simultaneously, while chewing gum too), S.Martin, J.Oshlick, M.Peretto (my partner, including the HAS contracting and financing, which made the ideas a reality -- thank you Maggie), J.Rieger, Capt.N.Rosenfeld, L.Salvioli, M.Staudinger (who joined us from UMass), Sr.Capt.L.Zicari and others who I am momentarily forgetting), but for now I just want to Thank several people who were unable to be onboard for our enjoyable trip: Dennis Varza, God rest his soul, who started all of this, many years ago, plus Steve Broker (COA President) and Dr. Dave Hudson (TMA) who were central to the original design of this 2019 "citizen-science expedition", and Peter Auster who is always helpful with marine science matters. Plus Keith Mueller, whose thoughts (and great photos) were instrumental in the early planning for this. Plus discussions about this NOT happening in other waters (and other things), with P.Alden, P.Auster, P.A.Buckley, K.Carson, H.Dam, J.Davis, D.Finch, M.Gochfeld, D.Jernigan, A.Jordaan, L.Kaufman, E.Lazo-Wasem, M.Lyman, G.McManus, E.Mills, D.Molnar, L.Norton, K.O'Brien-Clayton, P.Paton, B.Patteson, W.Petersen, K.Powers, D.Shearwater, G.Tudor, D.Veit, P.Willis, R.Zajac and many more (we will be adding to this list soon). The full list of contributors to this trip & project is hinted at by slides 1 and 2 of this deck: LIS Research Conference 2016
Plus partnership and cooperation from COA, HAS, CAS, UConn, TMA, Yale Peabody Museum, DEEP, UMass, and more. And the unbelievably "lucky" weather! More to come....
Several people asked about other pelagic trips which I organize/lead/co-lead (some jointly with Krill Carson), and they can be found at this site: http://trips33.blogspot.com/
Here is a message from Prof. Michelle Staudinger, of UMass (who was onboard with us on March 9th): "Please do share my work email [ask me for it] with the folks from the trip if they ask. Also, please circulate our website: http://necsc.umass.edu/ and remind folks that I will be giving a free webinar on Wednesday April, 3rd at noon: http://necsc.umass.edu/webinars/upcoming. They can also sign up for our mailing list (~2 emails a month) here: http://necsc.umass.edu/content/join-our-mailing-list"
SOME PHOTOGRAPHS from this trip:
SOME REFERENCES will be added here:
- Gulls and Plankton in Long Island Sound. LIS Research Conference 2016.
- COA Bulletin pre-trip update - scroll down to page 6
- Post-larval sand eels
- Feeding ecology of American sand lance Ammodytes americanus larvae from Long Island Sound
- NOAA's ELMR_North-Atlantic_National_report.pdf
- NOAA citizen science PMM Plankton Monitoring Network
- www.citizenscience.gov Plankton Monitoring Network
- PMM mobile technologies for citizen science
- many more coming...
CONTACT: for questions, suggestions, etc: robben99@gmail.com
PERMITS: This research cruise was conducted under several permits, including the following Permit To Collect, granted for one year by CT DEEP:
YALE PEABODY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: A 300ml sample of water collected during the March 9, 2019 pankton tow was (as per previous agreement with the museum and TMA The Maritime Aquarium) deposited with Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, CT, USA with Senior Curator, Eric Lazo-Wasem on April 4, 2019...
LESSONS LEARNED: will be filled-in here.
- Do more photographs of the water surface from the ship, to document macrofauna in the surface water, such as worms.
- Try dip-netting next time, in addition to plankton tows.
- Try some vertical plankton netting next time.
FOLLOWUP ACTIONS: will be filled-in here...
- Deposit samples with Yale's Peabody Museum, as per agreement with Eric Lazo-Wasem. Done.
- File trip report with DEEP and TMA The Maritime Aquarium, as per those agreements.
- Other action steps will be listed here.
POST TRIP:
- After our March 9 trip LIS experienced windy weather for most of the month, possibly disrupting the plankton blooms. There were no large gull flocks (over 1,000) noticed in LIS after our 3/9 trip.
- One Little Gull was reported at Southport Beach, CT (in the coastal range covered by our trip) on April 11, 2019 by Tina Green.
More info on plankton will be provide below.... over the next few weeks... note that many marine lifeforms go through a small planktonic stage (usually as larva) before adulthood, aka Meroplankton, as opposed to Holoplankton, which are plankton for their entire lives, such as copepods...
PRE-TRIP MATERIAL:
PRE-TRIP MATERIAL:
Everything below here is part of the PRE-trip material:
CONTACT: if you have any problems or questions related to this trip, please email me at robben99@gmail.com (or 860-9221098).
This website is one very long page. It is about one trip, on March 9th, 2019, Saturday, departing from Norwalk CT, USA at 10am by ship.
HEADS-UP: 10:00am DEPARTURE! This trip will depart the dock two hours earlier than planned, at 10:00am rather than noon, on March 9th, due to an unexpected late morning parade in Norwalk CT! Notice of this change was sent to participants around 7pm Feb.13th. So the 6-hour trip will be 10am-to-4pm (NOT noon-to-6) on March 9th. You should arrive at the dock 9:00-9:15am, to 9:30 at the very latest (you may want to factor-in some buffer time in case the lot is full and you need to find back-up parking).
STATUS: This trip is ON and it is SoldOut (with a waiting list). On February 2nd we reached the minimum number of participants needed to pay the charter fee. <Check this site weekly, for more instructions this month. >
WEATHER OUTLOOK: Based on the weather forecast, we are in luck, aiming for partly cloudy with a high of 40-degrees F.
SOME REMINDERS: Dress very warmly, including hat and gloves (it can feel 20 degrees colder than the temperature on shore, especially if WINDY!). Bring your own food & drink. NO GLASS is allowed onboard (except optical). No high heels. No smoking of any kind, including electronic/vaping. Please do not bring too much stuff onboard, since the ship is not that large. Your signed waiver document ( Liability Waiver document ) should be brought to the dock, if not sent-in already. Thank you.
PARKING: Scroll down to the DOCK and PARKING paragraphs far below, for details and two parking maps. Park at that Norwalk dock -- in the open parking lot, which is directly across from El Segundo restaurant, at 3 North Water Street, Norwalk, CT. This is the same parking lot as for the Sheffield Island Ferry. If that lot fills up, you can find backup parking details in the PARKING paragraph far below -- scroll down.
CAR POOLING: I will email you a link later tonight to the Manifest, listing all participants and the towns where people are coming from. This might be helpful for some people to coordinate car-pooling on Saturday.
WHAT ARE WE SEARCHING FOR?? JUST TWO THINGS! 1) One special bird, such as Little Gull or Kamchatka Gull, AND 2) several-thousand common birds, Ring-billed Gulls (and if we find such a large flock, we will focus on what they are eating -- and, of course, finding a rare gull amongst them).
LAST MINUTE REMINDERS LIST : will be posted here tonight, March 8th...
This long post is getting too long. Just scroll down and read as much as you need.
This website was updated on March 8, 2019 at 11:00am -- only 1 day before our March 9th trip.
GOOD NEWS: The first "plankton-feeding" has started and the first wave of Bonaparte's Gulls have arrived in CT this year, on February 19th:
RED markers on the map above indicates reports in the last 30 days, of Bonaparte's Gulls, and with these gulls have come the first-of-the-season Little Gulls, at Montauk Point, NY (on Feb.14 and 16, 2019), shown in red on the eBird maps below...
Here are two photos (by two excellent long-time Long Island, NY, birders, Ken and Suzy Feustel) taken two years ago at Montauk Point, also on February 14th... so, like clockwork, we are coming into the peak time for small gulls in our region, including Long Island Sound...
MAIN THEME: This trip is an unpredictable experiment, to learn more about the relatively understudied marine season of " late winter", of February and March (and at least to document a baseline of data for comparison in future trips, in future years and decades). The entire marine ecosystem, including birds (as well as fish, plankton, etc), is undergoing its annual major seasonal changes now, as one wave of plankton bloom cycles after another one, and the food chains of grazers and predators rev-up and respond. The winter winds and storms have pushed around the surface waters and destabilized the summer stratification of the seas. The resulting mixing of increased dissolved oxygen (DO, aided by cold water's capacity to hold more gases than warm summer waters) and nutrients (especially nitrates and phosphates and mostly the same ones needed by terrestrial plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_nutrition ) is fueling these plankton life-cycle blooms, starting with the explosion of photosynthesis in the phytoplankton, often beginning in mid-winter. This late winter period is perhaps the most dynamic time in the seas, and we have chosen this cold time of year to go out and try to learn more about what is happening! By the way, these gull species already know what is happening, in the pelagic water column and along the shore's intertidal zone, and that is why they are here now, fueling up on multiple trophic levels of the revved-up marine food web.
SUMMARY: March 9, 2019 is the trip date. Six hours on a modern research ship, in central LIS (Long Island Sound) waters, starting from Norwalk CT. A unique combination cruise, in LIS, including 1) searching for rare birds, 2) thousands of gulls and other seabirds feeding on plankton and fish, 3) plankton net towing, 4) showing the caught plankton on large screen from microscope, 5) underwater video photography (we'll do a slower version of this: click to view>> towing a video camera off Jeffries Ledge), 6) interactive commentaries (with Q&A) by top birders in New England, by marine scientists from UMass, and of course the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, on a stable and spectacular modern research vessel (scroll down to see 6 photos of the ship). A unique and perhaps once-only trip in the LIS waters off central CT. An $80 bargain (barely breaking-even with our charter cost)! We received a collection permit from CT DEEP, an agreement with Yale Peabody Museum to house our samples, will be assisted by UConn in the ID of the plankton, are sponsored by the Hartford Audubon Society, and will feed our resulting data into COA's Research LIS Gulls & Plankton Project. A multi-organization collaboration. Thank you all!
I know that some are wondering how frequently Long Island Sound gets rare and uncommon birds, and if we might have a chance to see any on March 9th, but I think if you recall the last few years of good LIS birds, and this apparent SKUA report from a few days ago, you will agree, that anything is possible in LIS!...
Note my January 27, 2019 video (click on the center of it, to run the VIDEO clip) and photo below at Long Beach, Stratford, CT: the earliest of the annual winter/spring "plankton bloom" cycles have begun and the gulls are already beginning to respond, so March 9th looks like a good date for our trip...
THE LIS GULLS, PLANKTON & FISH CRUISE OF MARCH 2019
THE LIS GULLS, PLANKTON & FISH CRUISE OF MARCH 2019
Do not miss this very unique trip through very dynamic offshore waters in LIS, Long Island Sound. PRE-register early to reserve a spot.
Get close to thousands of gulls in offshore Long Island Sound! Rare species are possible in March, such as Little Gull (one adult was very recently in Cape May NJ) or Kamchatka Gull (which is currently in LIS) !
Search and pursue uncommon birds offshore! Get close for photos, somewhere in the twenty miles between the Norwalk Islands and Stratford Point, CT.
Watch and work with scientists to sample these LIS waters for whatever these gulls are eating! On a modern research vessel, using multiple scientific methods of sampling the water, the fish, the plankton, etc.!
If we think of Long Island Sound as a restaurant-for-birds, we are trying to learn more about what is on that "menu". For example, why are Common Eiders increasing so much in LIS? Why are Razorbills pouring into LIS recently? Why did shearwaters invade eastern LIS last July? We will provide you with a draft of this evolving MENU (and our evolving month-by-month "Fish Calendar"), and may modify it as a result of this trip.
a.k.a. THE LIS RESEARCH CRUISE OF MARCH 2019
a.k.a. THE LIS RESEARCH CRUISE OF MARCH 2019
This trip combines serious Bird Watching and serious Marine Science. It focuses largely on Gulls, Fish and Plankton. We expect to get very close to thousands of gulls -- and will try to ID what they are eating.
Thousands of gulls, sometimes tens of thousands, mass in the offshore waters of LIS Long Island Sound, usually in the first half of March, to feed on something(s). We are planning a cruise right into the middle of these gulls this March. We will get close looks at many gulls (up to half a dozen species) and other birds (great photo opportunities), and hopefully catch and identify (we have an on-board microscope and large display screen) some of their prey items. If you might be interested, please register soon, before this ship and this trip fill up. We expect it to fill quickly.
PURPOSE: To learn more about gulls and plankton (and fish) in LIS Long Island Sound. And how they relate to each other during the late Winter and early Spring plankton blooms. AND to discover uncommon bird species far offshore.
What (which one or several species, lifeforms) are the thousands of gulls eating? What are the life cycles of those prey? What are those prey eating? Is anything special about the water column and the benthic environment directly underneath these masses of feeding gulls? Why does this happen on the CT side of LIS, not the NY side?
GOALS: 1) To find, ID, and photograph as many bird species as we can, in LIS waters east of Norwalk in the target area. 2) To find very large flocks of gulls in the water and to get close to them without disturbing their feeding. 3) To determine what those thousands of gulls are feeding on, using binoculars, telephotography, underwater video, plankton nets, microscopes, post-trip lab analyses of these plankton samples, etc.
BIRD SPECIES: At least six species of gulls are possible, including Little Gull and Black-headed Gull. Plus alcids and other late winter species which have been seen this year. During our last trip into these masses of gulls, they were oblivious to our ship, so we expect very close encounters with these intensely feeding birds, and unusual photo opportunities.
WHERE -- TARGET AREA: We will cruise in LIS waters from Norwalk toward Stratford Point, about 20 miles, and back to Norwalk, CT, USA, including some Norwalk Islands. The large gull flocks are usually within one mile of shore. Of course we cannot predict the route exactly nor can we be sure we will get all the way to Stratford Point, depending on where we might find masses of gulls, how slowly we pass through the flocks, and how long other stops might be.
WHEN: March 9th, Saturday. Fallback/storm/rain date is Sunday March 10th (perhaps 5% likely). Between late February and early April there is a week or two (usually in March) when plankton blooms get thousands of gulls into a surface-feeding frenzy, somewhere in LIS waters, usually in some of the waters between Norwalk and Stratford Pt., CT, sometimes a mile offshore.
TIME: Six hours, from 10am to 4pm, on one of the above dates. Be at the dock before 9:30am. In recent years gull numbers and feeding activity has been the greatest in the afternoon. During the trip, we may decide to shorten the duration by an hour or so, depending on the weather and birds; if we find the gull flocks early, or if there are disappointingly few birds that day, or if the weather/waves turn bad.
DOCK: The dock is 1,000 feet south of the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, CT. The cruise will leave from the Aquarium Dock which is located 100 feet south of the IMAX® theater. ((Address for the Aquarium is 10 N Water St, Norwalk, CT 06854)) There is an open parking lot right at the dock, and directly across from El Segundo restaurant (http://www.elsegundosono.com/ ), at 1 or 3 North Water Street, Norwalk, CT. This is the same open parking lot for the Sheffield Island Ferry. Parking there is $1.50 per hour, by credit card. If that open lot is full (it can hold 43 cars) see the parking alternatives below...
PARKING: The #1 recommended parking location is the open lot described above (and shown on maps below, in red circle), right at the dock for our ship. Use your credit card to purchase the maximum time, for $10.50, which is a better deal than buying hourly. If that lot fills before you arrive, there maybe some nearby street parking, plus the Haviland Lot parking on Haviland Street (south and west of our dock), and the high-capacity Maritime Garage (north of the dock, at the Aquarium)... https://en.parkopedia.com/parking/lot/north_water_street_lot/06854/norwalk/?arriving=201902232330&leaving=201902240130 . There are also some non-municipal parking areas along Washington Street, just south and west of our dock... http://www.norwalkpark.org/map .
PARADE BEGINS AT 11AM : THIS FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IS PROBABLY/HOPEFULLY IRRELEVANT, SINCE WE BELIEVE THAT SHIFTING OUR DEPARTURE TO 10AM INSTEAD OF NOON WILL ALLOW US TO 90% BYPASS THE CONGESTION FROM THE PARADE, WHICH KICKS-OFF AT 11AM. There will be a parade on March 9th in Norwalk! See below for the route which WAS recommended to us by the Norwalk Police, assuming our original noon departure, and a conflict with the 11am parade. But since we shifted to a 10am departure we should have no problems, hopefully. If you time your trip to arrive at the dock area by 9:00am (to 9:30am at the latest) you should be okay. If you experience any serious problems call my cell phone 860-9221098.
Here was the preliminary info we received: "I just saw in the local paper that Norwalk is having their St. Patrick's Parade on the 9th starting at 11am. The issue here is that the parade route circles the area where the boat is docked, this will close a number of streets while the parade goes by, including Veteran's Park, Washington St, North Main St up to Pine St where the parade ends at O'neill's Pub. I don't know how big this parade is or how long it will take..." ***We recently discussed this with the Norwalk Police Dept, and their instructions for navigating around this parade were, "Attendees of your cruise will need to take West Avenue to North Water Street to get to the Maritime Center during parade time." So, from West Avenue, turn east onto North Water Street, and follow it (including Ann St.) all the way down to the dock across from 3 North Water Street. *** BECAUSE OF THIS UNEXPECTED PARADE WE HAVE DECIDED TO SHIFT OUR TRIP BY TWO HOURS, TO DEPART FROM THE DOCK AT 10:00AM, NOT NOON. PARTICIPANTS WERE NOTIFIED OF THIS CHANGE BY EMAIL ON FEB.13TH.
RESEARCH: We will search for and survey birds, do underwater video with our own GoPro gear (similar to our ocean video: towing a video camera off Jeffries Ledge but at slower speed of 1-2 knots), tow for plankton (we have several nets), view plankton in on-board microscope and large display screen.
THE SHIP: The Norwalk Maritime Aquarium's new 63-foot $2.7million research vessel, RV "Spirit of the Sound". R/V Spirit of the Sound and see article below... This is a very stable ship. Note that there is also an indoor "classroom" in case of rain or extreme cold, able to hold and seat 30-40 people comfortably. It also contains a microscope connected to a 50-inch display screen. But bring your own sandwiches - there is no food sold onboard. And, yes, there is a head (toilette).
BRING: Bring your own lunch & drink (please no glass). Dress very warmly; it will feel ten to twenty degrees colder than on shore.
PROHIBITIONS: There are no Hazardous Substances or Compounds allowed on TMA (The Maritime Aquarium) property, including the ship, the Spirit of the Sound. Please do not bring high heels, glass, or smoking/vaping/electric cigarettes on board.
PARTICIPANTS: This trip is open; anyone can join this trip. Registration is required. No walk-ons. Target is a maximum of 35 participants for this trip, maybe plus a few more but only if absolutely required.
REGISTRATION and PAYMENT: Please 1) REGISTER immediately (we believe this trip will fill quickly), by email to Tom Robben at robben99@gmail.com and 2) PAY $80 by check by February 9th. Mail checks to this address: T.Robben, 172 Grandview Drive, Glastonbury CT 06033. Make your check payable to the Hartford Audubon Society.
PRICE: $80 per person, for this six-hour cruise. You will receive a full Refund if this cruise does not occur for any reason. No refunds otherwise. Note that this is a zero-profit trip, and this ticket-price is needed to cover our total cost for chartering this modern comfortable ship for six hours (the Aquarium has given us a discounted 6-hour total price because this is considered a scientific charter).
ORGANIZATIONS: this trip is co-sponsored by The Hartford Audubon Society (HAS Hartford Audubon Society , this is a HAS Field Trip -- special thanks to Maggie Peretto, President of HAS!) and The Connecticut Audubon Society (CAS https://www.ctaudubon.org/ ), working with The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk CT (TMA https://www.maritimeaquarium.org/ ). This trip was designed jointly with the COA, Connecticut Ornithological Association. Joint agreement has been reached to run this cruise, and the contract is being fine-tuned for signing this week.
LIABILITY WAIVER DOCUMENT is required: Everyone on board will be asked to sign a typical pelagic-trip liability waiver agreement prior to the trip. Here is a link to that one-page document, which all participants must fill-in and sign. They can then mail it to us, or deliver it to us when they arrive at the dock on March 9th: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lzluE5XtWJ5Dq5FuNv5ueVZZzXTbrhKLYJjucudLdFM/edit
RELATED ARTICLES/SITES: This is a new HAS field trip, described at the new HAS website : https://www.hartfordaudubon.org/trip-event/march-9-birding-long-island-sound-on-norwalk-aquariums-new-2-7million-ship/ . This trip is also in direct support of the COA Research Committee and is described on page 6 in the just-published Spring 2019 COA Bulletin: http://www.ctbirding.org/wp-content/uploads/Bulletin-Spring-2019.pdf .
BIRDERS: Several (quite a few!) of the top bird experts in the U.S. will be on board to lead the search for and ID of birds.
MARINE SCIENTISTS: Several top marine scientists in the U.S. will be on this trip.
LABORATORY FOLLOWUP: We hope that our collected samples will be analyzed at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk and at UConn marine labs at Avery Point (UConn has supported us in past years). Preliminary surface sampling here in prior years has found some barnacles, slipper shell limpets/snails, various copepods and other zooplankton, but no fish! These thousands of gulls are surface feeding intensely, and it feels like we are overlooking some component of this active late winter food web (the LIS food web changes month by month, especially as the multiple waves of plankton blooms occur and then fade, species by species). Of course the results of our post-trip analyses will be published online for everyone to see. <<
PRE-TRIP FIELD WORK/RESEARCH: During the two weeks preceding this cruise, birders will try to locate any emerging large congregations of surface-feeding gulls in LIS, so as to save searching time during our 3/9 cruise. As of late January there is one adult Little Gull around Cape May NJ, and we already see over a thousand Ring-billed Gulls (plus Iceland Gull, Glaucous Gull, etc) assembling around Long Beach, Stratford, CT, apparently going after an early bloom of Slipper shell snails. See the video above.
POST-TRIP REPORT: A trip report will be created, after the trip, and posted here or more likely at a companion website (with a link from here), plus links to eBird reports for this trip.
Note that the map below is a possible trip route, but we may not get that far, all the way to Stratford Point, depending on where we encounter the flocks of gulls, etc...
This is the ship for our March 9th cruise:
March 27, 2019 four photos below: Maggie Peretto, President of HAS Hartford Audubon Society, and Louis Zicari, Senior Captain, in the classroom (another good viewing area, with high quality glass windows), which seats more than 35. The onboard microscope and its 50-inch high resolution display. The side walkway. The steps up to the top deck....
These are photos of the surface-feeding gull flocks which we will search for on 3/9:
Here are the 19 gull species which have appeared in Connecticut, in LIS, during recent years:
The following map was a snapshot from eBird in the Spring 2016. It covers only reports of Bonaparte's Gulls in the months March and April, for all years, with the red icons representing reports in the most recent 30 days, in Spring 2016. Note the concentration of reports between Norwalk and New Haven CT, and the paucity of reports from the NY side of LIS...
The following eBird map shows our area of greatest interest, LIS waters (typically within a mile or two of shore) from Norwalk east to Stratford Point, CT. This eBird map was taken on 2018dec31 showing only Bonaparte's Gull reports for the two months of March and April, all years. We are using this as an indicator species, although most of the thousands of gulls here will be Ring-billed Gulls... plus other gull species we may get including Herring, Iceland, Glaucous, Great Black-backed, Lesser Black-backed, Little, Black-headed, Common, etc.
The following map shows one possible route for our March cruise, from Norwalk CT about 20 miles east to Stratford Point, although we may not get that far, depending on birds, weather, etc...
LIS MENU: A new checklist of many prominent lifeforms in LIS will be provided here.
LIS FISH CALENDAR: A new month-by-month calendar of fish in LIS will be provided here.
THE QUESTIONS, THE UNKNOWNS:
- Overall Question: "What is out there, and NOT out there (and what's happening in LIS) at this time of year?"
- Will there be noticeable blooms of plankton this (warm, mostly) winter?
- When and where in LIS will they peak? Usually in March?
- Will the gulls be able to find them, and mass in the thousands?
- Will this attract uncommon gulls such as Little Gull (H. minutus)?
- Will this attract other species of birds?
- What species/genus/families of plankton(s) are these gulls feeding on? WORKING THEORY: Gulls are eating several different plankton.
- Is there a sequential chain of blooms of different species? Which?
- What are the LIS seasonal cycles for phytoplankton, micro-zooplankton, larger plankton?
- Which other birds are out there in LIS, and feeding on what?
- What is the long history of these plankton blooms in LIS? Miley Bull's input on this is very relevant, "We have certainly noticed large gull flocks concentrated and dipping on patches of the Sound in the spring since I was a kid, early flounder fishing with my dad on the unofficial opening of the flounder season, St. Patrick’s Day. In those days (1950s) it was easy to catch a bucket of winter flounder almost anywhere."
- What is the food web around these plankton blooms?
- Where do fish fit into this food web? Since there are so few in LIS in winter.
- What about "forage fish" in particular, at this time of year?
- Where else along the Atlantic coast are similar gull plankton feeding events? Why?
- Is this a trip we should run again next year? and perhaps annually?
- Is this ship a good "birding platform"? What are the best ways to bird from this ship?
- What lessons did we learn from this March 9th trip??
- Did any new questions get generated by this trip?
REGISTER -- TO HOLD YOUR SPOT ON THE TRIP:
- Contact robben99@gmail.com to express your intent. Pay later, by February 9th, by check.
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