Dovekie response to Glaucous Gull behaviour and

• Main Authors: Kurt K. Burnham, Wlltam Buruvh. Qm
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Greenland; Dovekie; Glaucous Gull; North Greenland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.657.3941; http://peregrinefund.org/docs/pdf/research-library/2005/2005-Burnham-dovekie.pdf

(Med et dansk resum6: Sqlkongemes reaktion pd ove(lyvende Grdmdger i en nordgrpnlandtk koloni) Abstract Dovekies A lle alb form breeding colonies of thousands of birds in North Creenland. One of their major predators, the Glaucous Ctlll Larus hyrert.r/rcu.r, att"acks Dovekies while they attend their breeding colony. We tbund ftat Dovekies at the edge and at the center of the breeding colony responded similarly to gulls. Dovekies we.e sig-nilicantly more likely to evacuate the colony when a gull approached low to mediurn in height (<60 m above colony) and flew with a steady wing beat or an irregular llight pattern. A gull that approached f'rom inland wa.s signiticantly more likely to cause the colony to evacuate than a gull that approached trom the sea. Dovekies responded similarly to gulls in cloudy and clear conditions, but were signiticantly more likely to leave the coloqy when the weather was windy than when it was calm. Dovekies appear to evaluate the threat of gull predation based on the gull's behavior and its approsch height. Our data suggest that Dovekies agree on the tfueat a gull poses as generally all birds cvacu-ated thc colony or remained. Partial evacuation ofthe colony was ra.re and occurred generally when gulls gave mixed signals such as tlf ng high but irregulady. approach in North Greenland