OSPREY - Memorial University of Newfoundland

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contrast. While fog occurred infrequently on Little Bell e
Island during the gulls' breeding season. tbe colony Red
Island was blanketed in almost perpetual fog throughout the
summer. So since 1974 several students, my family, and I
spent considerable time in Red Island fog. It's been
interesting to observe the effects of this environment
both gulls and people.
In studying the behavior of the Herring Gulls of the Red
Island it was evident that many typical behavior patterns
differed from those displayed by gulls in other colonies such
as the ODe on Little Bell Island. Some of these differences
were due to a rather large rat population which lived in the
Red Island gull colony. While we bad initially hoped to compare e
birds of the two colonies based on visability characteristics
it was necessary to examine the adaptations of the birds on
Red Island to the intense rat predation as well .
By comparing areas of the Red Island colony with low
and high levels of rat predation and the colony on Little Bell
Island, a pattern emerged by which the gulls seemed to be coping
with the rats. Nests in high predation areas were closely clustered
rather than distributed ---comfort in numbers. In selecting
a nest site, most corrunonly the birds would choose an elevated
area of low, sparse vegetation. The nests were not unusually
large but were taller than those usually built by Herring Gulls .
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