The Herring Gull: Shorelines
On his way down the shore of Rock Harbor, the hiker
pauses to admire the scene. Under his feet, lichen-patterned rocks slope
down to the lapping water. Down the trail, dark pointed conifers crowd
the shore. And beyond the trees, Rock Harbor and its flanking string of
islands stretch away to unknown places. Maybe before he leaves the
island he will try for trout along this shore, and maybe he will get out
to the lake side of those fringing islands to explore the wave-struck
rocks. The possibilities of his adventure are endless. But right now he
wants to get to Three Mile Camp to make his first dinner. He adjusts the
new red pack on his back and continues down the trail.
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(Photo by Robt. G. Johnsson)
High in the air above him, a female herring gull
surveys the same scene. At the moment, only one aspect of it interests
herthe food it might offer. She has two downy young in a nest on
Burnt Island, and their demands are incessant. Her keen, cold yellow
eyes catch a red spot moving through the trees; but the hiker is not
eating. She glides down over the docks at Rock
Harbor Lodge. The black ducks are there, paddling
along the shore, but no one is feeding them. She turns and flies across
Rock Harbor toward Raspberry Island.
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A gull rests on a natural bridge on the rugged shore of Raspberry
Island. (Photo by Robt. G. Johnsson)
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On the outer side of the island the gull lands on a
big rock. All along this shore the gray basalt slopes down from the
thick forest to the crashing waves. It is not a very productive place
from a gull's point of view, but a surprising amount of life
nevertheless exists here. Above reach of the waves and winter ice,
lichens, mosses, and crevice plantsthree-toothed cinquefoil,
hare-bell, and othersadd color to the scene, while closer to the
forest edge trailing juniper, ninebark, willows, and other shrubs form a
denser cover on the rocks. Under and through the plants, a few ants and
spiders search for food, and snails make their slow way. It is mid-June,
and a tiny chorus frog, hidden in a mossy rain pool, is still calling.
New tadpoles lie on the silty bottoms of other pools in the rock.
The gull watches disinterestedly as two myrtle
warblers fly from the forest down to the water's edge and begin
investigating a stranded log. But when another gull drops from the air
toward something floating on the water, she takes off screaming and
flies at the other bird, driving it away. She settles on the water and
begins pecking rapidly at the prizea dead sucker. Now other gulls
arrive to dispute her ownership. Swooping, crying, splashing, they rip
at the fish until one retains it long enough to swallow it. The gulls
then fly their separate ways, except for the female, who remains on the
water to smooth her ruffled feathers.
Nearby a loon hunts where the gull can't
gobeneath the water. Here the shore rocks angle down, full of
crevices and indentations where lake chubs, sticklebacks, and other
small fish hide. The loon passes these and dives deeper, down to the
quieter haunts of lake trout, burbot, cisco, and white sucker. It spots
a young burbot, and using its wings for extra speed, churns after the
fish. Successful, the loon swallows the fish and returns to the surface
for air. When the bird tires, it will abandon the pursuit of fish and
hunt snails in the shallower water.
Meanwhile the gull has started a patrol flight down
the shore. Briefly it circles over a beaver lodge on the inner side of
Smithwick Island, built where it is sheltered from waves. Beavers on
these islands are safe from wolves in summer, but their supply of aspen
and birch is running low. More and more they are being forced to cut
alder, mountain maple, and other less-preferred food. The gull sees no
sign of life around the lodgeno frogs, no sunning snakes, no young
birdsand flies on.
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Goldeneyes nest in tree cavities and take their young to nearby waters
to feed. (Photo by R. Janke)
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Gliding over Lorelei Lane, the narrow channel that
splits the islands into two parallel strings, she sees families of
goldeneyes and mergansers swimming near the shores. Each group of downy
hatchling ducks is led by its mother, who dives for fish from time to
time but never leaves her young for long. Suddenly the gull notices a
little red-breasted merganser that has lagged behind. She swoops
quickly, but somehow the mother merganser gets there first, and rising
almost out of the water, wards off the gull with beak and wings. The
gull continues southwestward down the island chain.
At Mott Island she lands on a little gravel beach,
one of many that occur on indentations of the shoreline between rocky
stretches. High up the beach, near the fringing alders and fir forest,
driftwood and other debris lies in tangled rows, cast up by storms. The
gull walks deliberately along these rows, now and then turning over
sticks and snatching spiders, beetles, and other small things hiding
there. Once she tries for a butterfly that has been attracted to the
rotting organic mass. But pickings are thin here too. She takes off and
wings strongly toward a place which, in the past, has been rewarding.
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(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
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Even over the old Rock Harbor Lighthouse, now tilting
slightly in disuse, the gull knows food is at hand. She has spotted Pete
Edisen, a commercial fisherman here since 1916, out on his dock cleaning
fish. Just for fun this time, he has been trolling in Middle Islands
Passage and has caught four hefty lake trout. The gull is accustomed to
Pete and lands without hesitation on the post at the end of the dock. As
he has done for decades, Pete looks up with a smile and tosses the
entrails toward the big white bird. Leaving the heads for later, she
gulps the entrails whole and with a quiet cry heads toward Burnt Island,
near the lighthouse, where her two offspring wait in a shallow nest on
the rocks.
Burnt Island, one of many around Isle Royale used by
gulls for nesting, is a tall, flat-topped, half-acre rock crowned with a
miniature forest of fir, spruce, white-cedar, birch, and aspen. It is the
home of song sparrows, foraging beavers, and some 75 pairs of herring
gulls. Most of the gulls build their simple, grass- and moss-lined nests
in the open at the edge of the trees. Here, beside a low juniper bush,
the female and her mate have hatched and raised two light-grey balls of
down that now rise on their black legs and with loud peeps greet their
mother. Directed by some ancient instinct, they peck at the red spot on
her bill until she opens it and regurgitates all she has found this
afternoon.
If the food keeps coming day after day, if the
weather is not too severe, if they are not killed by a hawk, fox, or
another gull, and if they survive three or four winters of southward
migration, they may reach adulthood and raise young of their own. But
the odds are not good. Perhaps in two or three years the parents will
raise four or five young, and perhaps two of these will live to replace
their parents. The environment of which the gulls are a part cannot
support all that hatch. Nor can it support all the young ducks or all
the insects. The gulls are one of many agents that keep these within
bounds. As predator, competitor, scavenger, and prey, the herring gull
is an important strand in the Isle Royale web of life.
Her young satisfied for now, the female gull flies
northward through other circling gulls, on another search.
For the herring gull, Isle Royale's shore zone means
food and shelterin short, home. For man, it means beauty,
interest, adventure, a place to fish. This meeting place of land and
water has a mysterious attraction for us perhaps greater than that of
any other island environment. Let's look at it now, as it gradually
changes around the island's rim. We will explore the shore not in gull
fashion, but as a boatman would.
Southwest from Rock Harbor, the basalt humps up
steeply from the water, with few gravel beaches for the small boater to
land on. Several miles along, a narrow, cliff-walled gap leads into the
quiet recesses of Chippewa Harbor.
About two or three miles east of Malone Bay there is
a fundamental change in the shoreline, as the surface rock becomes
sandstone and conglomerate. Less resistant to the waves than basalt,
these rocks make low shores where forest comes down almost to the water.
These reddish rocks form the shoreline all the way around to Grace
Harbor, at the southwest end of the island.
Malone Bay and Siskiwit Bay, a big scoop out of the
island's southern shore, form a distinctive watery environment. Islands,
reefs, shallows, deep water, relatively sheltered conditions, and
collected nutrients make this area attractive to fish, which in turn
attract ducks, loons, herons, gulls, a few otters, and fishermen. This was
one of the chief centers of commercial fishing on Isle Royale, and
today it is visited by many sport fishermen in search mainly of lake
trout. Some of the islands that string out northeastward from Point
Houghton, forming the outer edge of the bay, have been used by gulls for
years as a nesting ground. Isle Royale Lighthouse stands on Menagerie
Island, at the end of the string, to warn ships.
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The shorelines of Isle Royale range from treelined gravel beaches to
bare rock as illustrated in these scenes from Malone Bay, Siskiwit Bay,
Scoville Point, Mott Island, and the north shore. (Photos by Robt. G. Johnsson)
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At the head of Siskiwit Bay are the longest of Isle
Royale's rare sand beaches. Made from fragments and grains of red
sandstone and conglomerate, these beaches have a reddish color. Moose
often follow these shores, leaving deep cloven hoof prints. Occasionally
their tracks are paralleled by those of wolves, which use the beach as a
regular pathway because of its convenience. In winter, when ice covers
the bay, wolf packs often cut straight across the bay from Point
Houghton.
From Siskiwit Bay around to Washington Harbor, there
is little shelter for the boatman. The prevailing west or southwest wind
drives the waves unopposed into the shore. Washington Harbor, with its
deep recesses, islands, and nutrient-feeding Washington Creek, forms
another oasis of shelter and life at the southwest end of the island.
Like Siskiwit Bay, it is another gathering spot for fish, fishermen,
ducks, moose, and other creatures. Washington Island, at the mouth of
the harbor, has long been a base for commercial fishermen. At the head
of Washington Harbor, Washington Creek brings down organic matter and
silt, forming a rich, shallow delta where it enters the harbor.
Underwater plants grow thickly on this delta, attracting fish and thus
ducks, grebes, loons, and herons. The aquatic plants also attract moose,
which come at all times of the day and night to feed on them. Sometimes
submerging completely, the big bulls come up with water cascading off
their wide backs, chewing contentedly on the succulent "salad." In
spring rainbow trout and in fall brook trout run up the stream to spawn.
A campground and ranger station here at Windigo are fortunately situated
for enjoying this focal point of animal life.
Stretching from Washington Harbor to Blake Point,
Isle Royale's north shore evokes feelings of adventure, respect, and
sometimes fear. When strong northerly winds are blowing, the boatman has
few places of refuge along much of this straight, cliff-faced shore.
Here the waves are most awesome, beating up against the rock with enough
force over the centuries to carve sea caves and arches. Even gulls seem
scarcer here, though gulls, herons, and cormorants nest on small
offshore islands.
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Storm waves batter an islet near the north end of
Isle Royale. (Photo by Robt. G. Johnsson)
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One feels like pausing when he reaches the security
of McCargoe Cove, a long, straight cleft angling into the island,
created by down-thrusting of the rocks along a fault. At the head of
this cove, Chickenbone Creek has formed another delta. The stream now
winds through dense alders growing on the stream's deposits. This, too,
is a rich spot for animals. Here I have watched beavers, a muskrat,
ducks, loons, and moose, and once saw a pigeon hawk trying to catch
blackbirds roosting in the alders.
Continuing on our tour we reach the many-fingered
northeastern end of Isle Royale, a seemingly endless alternation of long
peninsulas and deep, island-dotted coves. Along these sheltered coves,
trees grow nearly to the shore. At their heads, mussels abound in the
quiet shallow water. This is the land-and-water scene that particularly
attracted tourists and cottagers in pre-park days and today is the
summer home of most of the remaining cottage lease holders. It is prime
canoe country where the portages are short and the possibilities for
exploration are long. Several boaters' campgrounds provide good bases
from which to enjoy this watery maze.
At Blake Point, the northeastern tip of the island,
rough water often makes trouble for boaters. The water between Blake
Point and Passage Island, in fact, is considered some of the worst in
Lake Superior. Currents are strong and tricky here, and wind compounds
the difficulty. The steep, rocky shore offers no shelter. Once around
Blake Point, however, we enter Merritt Lane and then Rock Harbor, places
of comparative safety.
Such a trip around Isle Royale engenders deep respect
for the great lake as well as intimate acquaintance with the herring
gull's world.
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