It is that time of year again when the kids are going back to school, the universities have begun classes, and the tourists are deserting the Seacoast for their winter homes.
This is always a bittersweet time for us at the Oceanarium as we, too, must say goodbye to the end of another season.
The visitors and interns are gone, and I am left with just myself and the animals. Visitors are always amazed that we return all the animals to their natural habitat each fall. No matter how hard I try, I always feel an attachment to our critters, and it is always difficult to place them back into the sea. Some I know will fare well back in their natural environment, but others, I always wonder what will happen to them.
We do our best to make sure they do not have to acclimate when we put them back. We feed them as close to what they would naturally eat as we can. I collect amphipods and fish throughout the summer and make daily water changes to provide them with the nutrients from seawater they are accustomed to receiving.
Sea vases: Meet the sticky, squishy wonders of the ocean you didn’t know about
The tidepool animals are returned in September. The deeper water animals will need to go back a little later. We wait until the surface water temperature dips to a more suitable environment for them, sometime late in October.
Meanwhile, Gulf of Maine animals are gearing up for the colder winter temperatures. The lobsters are eating heavily to begin migration offshore to warmer, deeper waters for the winter. Horseshoe crabs either dig into the mud of the estuaries or, in the case of older individuals, head out to deeper waters. The migrating birds gather in flocks to fly south, along with many “snowbird” humans.
The beaches are left to the gulls.
On that note, I thought that I would share one of my favorite stories about the gulls that have the beaches to themselves for the next few months. I wonder how it feels to them to be rid of the annoying humans. Or do they miss us and our food scraps?
In the 1970s, seagulls were romanticized by the iconic story of “Jonathon Livingston Seagull.” There is no such bird as a seagull. There are several species of gulls, some of which never come near the ocean.
Along the New Hampshire Seacoast, the most commonly seen gulls are the great black-backed and herring gulls. In addition, in the summer, you may see some Iceland and laughing gulls. Immature gulls are mottled brown and white. At age 3, they begin to gain adult coloration and attain adult plumage at 4. Even some experts have difficulty identifying an immature herring or black-backed gull.
According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, gulls mate for life, returning to the same nesting area each year. Many nest at the Isles of Shoals and roost there in the evenings. They can be seen flying east to the Shoals at sunset. Beware of a nesting gull! They are extremely territorial and will attack anything approaching their nest or chicks. While visiting the Shoals one spring, my son made the mistake of taking a “run” and came back with a bloody head from an irate gull. A wise hiker always carries a large stick over their head when venturing into gull nesting territory.
Gulls along the coast have adapted to feeding along the shore and in tidepools. Cars parked along the shore often find sea urchins and mussels scattered on their hoods. The gulls pick the hard-shelled animals from the tide pools, drop them onto the pavement or rocks to smash, then eat the remains. If a car happens to be in the way, so be it.
In the 1970s, our shoreline was inhabited by herring gulls, large white gulls with gray wings and yellow beaks. Herring gulls have declined in numbers while the black-backs expanded their range. Black-backs are the largest gulls in the world, much more aggressive than the herring gulls, with a snowy white head and black wings. They often feast on other birds, chicks and eggs, and occasionally other gulls’ wayward chicks.
Gulls are scavengers and seem to be able to adapt to any environment. They thrive on trash left by humans, and recently, a friend of mine was “bombed” while riding his bike with snack bags of nuts and chips. It seems that the gulls on Hampton Beach have become very good at snatching snack bags. They seem to be trying to “crack” them open just as they would a sea urchin or clam by dropping them on the rocks or pavement. Either that or they are indeed trying to drop them on unsuspecting tourists!
Gulls are an intelligent, intriguing animal. I am very thankful that they exist along our coast. They do us a great service by cleaning up the trash we humans leave behind!
Have a good winter! See you in the spring.
Ellen Goethel is a marine biologist and the owner of Explore the Ocean World Oceanarium at 367 Ocean Blvd. at Hampton Beach.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Hampton Beach Oceanarium to returns critters to the sea
