Franklin’s Gull 
175 
Search for a 
Colony 
Most of the lakes 
It is no easy matter to discover a colony, as the birds select a wild 
region and are likely to change their location from year to year. Thus, 
to ascertain from settlers where they have nested one year does not 
assure finding them there again. The distances over the prairie are 
so vast that one may easily miss the right place. By dint of driving 
and tramping for hundreds of miles, during several trips to the North- 
west, I have succeeded in finding two of the great colonies. One was in 
North Dakota, which I have described in “Among the Water Fowl.” 
The other and later experience was out in the 
broken, rolling prairie country of southwestern 
Saskatchewan, where there are many lakes and 
where this Gull is, in many districts, a common bird, 
were alkaline, and had no favorable grass or rushes. 
The ninth of June began as one of the many cold, lowering days of 
the unusually wet season of 1915 on those bleak plains, when we started 
off on another cold drive in search of the elusive colony. The sky was 
dark with heavy banks of cumuli, having a sinister, autumnal aspect. 
For five miles the trail meandered up and down over the rolling prairie, 
then up a billowy ridge. Out beyond us for some miles extended a per- 
fectly flat plain, which in time past had evidently been the bed of a large 
lake. All that was left of it lay well out in the middle of the area, a 
long, narrow lake, in two arms, surrounded by a vast area of reeds 
growing out of the water. In the foreground a big bunch of cattle was 
feeding. As we drove nearer I noticed a few of the Gulls flying toward 
the lake or hovering over the reeds. The nearer we came, the more 
birds were seen. Stopping the horse, I looked 
through my binoculars. There was no* longer 
room for doubt. Hundreds of Gulls, anywhere I 
might look over a wide area, were fluttering up and alighting again. 
Driving to the margin of the great marshy flat, where the prairie 
began to be wet and soft, we halted. Near us began a solid area of 
reeds that extended out perhaps a quarter of a mile to the first open 
water. We could now hear the confused chattering of the multitude of 
birds. With cameras strapped to our backs and long rubber boots pulled 
up, we started in, rather anxiously, fearing that the water might prove 
too deep to wade, and we had no boat. To our delight it proved to be 
not over knee-deep. Canvasbacks, Redheads, and other Ducks kept flying 
out before us, and Coots and Grebes slipped off through the tangle. We 
paid them scant attention now, for we were about to witness a sight so 
remarkable that we had eyes for hardly anything else. 
Now the Gulls began to discover us. Rising in clouds, with ear- 
splitting screaming, they flew to greet us, hovering but a few yards over 
our heads. The sun was shining brightly through the fast-departing 
clouds, and the birds’ white breasts showed clearly the delicate rosy tinge. 
Here, now, were the first of the nests at our feet, platforms of dead 
reed-stems, built up from the water among the reeds, which now had a 
Hosts of 
Gulls 
