OLD CROW 201 



That afternoon and on May 16 these impressive flights continued 

 to be composed mostly of four, but sometimes of five, or three gulls. 

 Herring gulls, which the Indians call Tetyet hhya^ were often among 

 the groups, in a minority of about one in four. The number four also 

 prevailed in the mixed flights and their formation and course were not 

 different from the flights composed exclusively of glaucous gulls. A 

 few of the flights passed eastward over the Porcupine River. On that 

 day about 100 large gulls were carefully watched from their first 

 appearance about two miles below the village. At the first sight of 

 them it appeared as if their course was set and there was no hesitation 

 at the mouth of Old Crow, where most of the flights turned north as 

 if prepared by anticipation for the change in course. 



The flights of these large white birds were so conspicuous and so 

 obviously a purposive migration that it seemed warranted to estimate 

 that the 100 gulls carefully watched comprised a sample numbering 

 possibly ten percent of the two- days' traffic and perhaps less than 

 one percent. This assumption leads to the estimate that between one 

 and ten thousand large gulls flew up the Porcupine to Old Crow on 

 May 15 and 16. Peter Lord first noticed large gulls flying north over 

 Crow Flats on May 16. 



On May 17 most flights continued up the Old Crow, but an increas- 

 ing number went eastward over the Porcupine River. These two 

 migratory courses were followed in similar fashion until May 22, but 

 on some of the later days the route to the village passed over the river, 

 in which the ice was beginning to move. The orderliness of the flights 

 diminished as herring, and more rarely glaucous, gulls occasionally 

 stopped along the swift running river after the breakup. Only adult 

 gulls were noticed before the breakup. 



Glaucous gulls are rare in the interior of Alaska south of the Brooks 

 Range in summer. One in second-year plumage was taken at Old 

 Crow November 28, 1957. 



Since pairs of herring gulls in breeding season are seldom as close 

 as a mile apart on the large rivers in the arctic interior, one day's 

 migratory flight past Old Crow could probably mtroduce the entire 

 nesting population of herring gulls found on the upper Porcupine. 

 No significant part of the more numerous migration of glaucous gulls 

 remains in the interior. It is likely that this impressive migration of 

 glaucous gulls and fewer herring gulls brings up the Porcupine River 

 from Alaska an important contribution to the summer population 

 of large gulls on the shores of Mackenzie Bay and the Delta. The 

 glaucous gulls were first sighted at Reindeer Station in the Delta on 

 May 15 (Porsild, 1943, p. 30), and the summer population of western 

 glaucous gulls extends along the American arctic coast about to An- 

 derson River (Snyder, 1957). 



