Gulls Gulls and More Gulls

COLDSTREAM, BC – Hundreds of gulls stood shoulder-to-shoulder on Kalamalka Lake’s Rotary Pier today, braving the November chill under a slate-gray sky.

The birds are mostly Ring-billed Gulls, the smaller, black-ringed-billed cousins of the familiar “seagulls” that frequent ocean beaches.

Standing on a dry pier beats bobbing on cold water

The North Okanagan hosts several gull species now known to breed regularly, including Ring-billed and California Gulls, according to the British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas (2008-2012) and ongoing eBird records from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Gull colonies in the interior Okanagan were once rare. The first documented interior breeding by California Gulls occurred on Grant (Whiskey) Island in Okanagan Lake in the early 1970s.

Prior to the late 1960s, large gull colonies were essentially unknown in the region.

The birds naturally expanded inland from prairie and coastal populations, drawn to new food sources such as landfills, sewage lagoons and ploughed fields, rather than being deliberately introduced.

Today, standing on a dry pier beats bobbing on cold, turbulent water, and for gulls, the solid ground allows them to rest and conserve energy during fall and winter while still staying near feeding and loafing grounds.