Long-tailed Ducks by Bob Boekelheide

“Bottoms Up! How Diving Birds Survive and Thrive in the Salish Sea”
Presented by Bob Boekelheide
Wednesday, June 19, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Dungeness River Nature Center, Rainshadow Hall
No charge to attend

Many water birds in the Salish Sea are “divers,” meaning that they submerge themselves from the surface of the water to pursue prey below the surface, using their wings and/or feet for propulsion.  Local diving birds include loons, grebes, murres, guillemots, auklets, cormorants, and diving ducks. Some go all the way to the bottom to capture prey like mollusks and crustaceans, whereas others capture fish and other organisms in the middle of the water column. How do they do it? How deep can they go? How do their bodies cope with the physiological changes as they head into the abyss and then return to the surface?

Bob Boekelheide

Bob Boekelheide was the first director of the Dungeness River Audubon Center, as well as a biologist at Point Reyes Bird Observatory in California and a high school science teacher in Washington. He loves data. He has compiled the Sequim-Dungeness Christmas Bird Count and Clallam County Migration Count for OPAS since 1995, as well as initiated several community science projects and surveys. Join Bob as he describes how these birds adapt to life underwater, opening up a whole new world of prey possibilities.