What do Gulls eat?

[pcs]

pcs submitted a new resource:

What do Gulls eat? - photos of gulls eating different things

You'll be surprised what's on the menu for gulls, compilation of photos in The Guardian.

Read more about this resource...

 

[Jack Dawe]

This reminds me of an article I once read about an autopsy that concluded that a Herring Gull had been killed by eating a ham sandwich. It wasn't actually the sandwich that killed it; the stupid bird hadn't bothered to unwrap it from its clingfilm covering, so eventually starved.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

As to gulls eating coot chicks. I shot a sequence of that once. Bad pics though as I was shooting from my apartment on the third floor (not counting ground floor) because I just wanted to take some shots for the record.

I have a pair of resident coots in my part of the canal that runs below my apartment. They breed every year. This was in 2017 and they had just one chick left at this point. And the little one kept swimming away from the nest below the deck of an old houseboat, where it was safe.

The story begins here, with the parent on the nest, calling the chick to come back. It didn't. The mute swan is no danger, but there were lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls flying above. I knew this wouldn't end well. I had my gear ready and was waiting for things to unfold.

#1 Parent on the nest, junior swimming away. He actually swam all the way to the middle of the canal! I was holding my breath...

Parent goes after him and brings him back, trying to steer him unto the nest. Junior is stubborn and swims away again, parent follows and tries to keep it near the houseboat.

Next the parent tries to get junior to join him in the tire, where it will be safer.

Junior doesn't listen and swims on. The parent goes after him.

All the while I am watching the big gulls above. But when they came down it happened so blazingly fast that I wasn't ready, so shots are far from good.

The parent immediately attacks but to no avail.

The gull with junior now gets pursued by the other gulls: mine, mine, mine, so he has to eat the chick on the fly.

And this is the last seen of the little Coot chick: it's two feet dangling from the gull's mouth...

 

[pcs]

This reminds me of an article I once read about an autopsy that concluded that a Herring Gull had been killed by eating a ham sandwich. It wasn't actually the sandwich that killed it; the stupid bird hadn't bothered to unwrap it from its clingfilm covering, so eventually starved.

Plastic kills a lot of birds, although gluttony was part of this one's dead..

 

[pcs]

As to gulls eating coot chicks. I shot a sequence of that once. Bad pics though as I was shooting from my apartment on the third floor (not counting ground floor) because I just wanted to take some shots for the record.

I have a pair of resident coots in my part of the canal that runs below my apartment. They breed every year. This was in 2017 and they had just one chick left at this point. And the little one kept swimming away from the nest below the deck of an old houseboat, where it was safe.

The story begins here, with the parent on the nest, calling the chick to come back. It didn't. The mute swan is no danger, but there were lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls flying above. I knew this wouldn't end well. I had my gear ready and was waiting for things to unfold.

#1 Parent on the nest, junior swimming away. He actually swam all the way to the middle of the canal! I was holding my breath...
View attachment 13237

Parent goes after him and brings him back, trying to steer him unto the nest. Junior is stubborn and swims away again, parent follows and tries to keep it near the houseboat.
View attachment 13238

Next the parent tries to get junior to join him in the tire, where it will be safer.
View attachment 13239

Junior doesn't listen and swims on. The parent goes after him.
View attachment 13240

All the while I am watching the big gulls above. But when they came down it happened so blazingly fast that I wasn't ready, so shots are far from good.
View attachment 13241

The parent immediately attacks but to no avail.
View attachment 13242

The gull with junior now gets pursued by the other gulls: mine, mine, mine, so he has to eat the chick on the fly.
View attachment 13245

And this is the last seen of the little Coot chick: it's two feet dangling from the gull's mouth...
View attachment 13249

It's horrible what happens to the chick(even it's just how nature works) but the last photos are also kind of funny....

 

[Jack Dawe]

Plastic kills a lot of birds, although gluttony was part of this one's dead..

Sadly that's true. These days every albatross has plastic of some sort in its stomach.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

It's horrible what happens to the chick(even it's just how nature works) but the last photos are also kind of funny....

What was amazing was watching the parent. He immediately went in attack mode but after the little one was gone, he shook himself and went on his way. I do wonder though. Coots are very aggressive birds but good parents, I would almost say loving parents if that wouldn't anthropomorphise them. And they, like all birds, invest so much into their offspring. I don't know I just find it hard to believe that they can just shake it off that easily and proceed as if nothing has happened.

 

[pcs]

As there's nothing more to be done maybe nature's way to cope. And as you say, don't anthropomorph.

 

[Capn Jack]

Gulls are ravenous and will get anything. This one got an English muffin from someplace- probably someone left their breakfast unattended and the gull stole it. Alternatively, the waitstaff was dilatory clearing a table.

JAK_2579 by Jack Silver, on Flickr

I saw the bird with the muffin sometime later.
JAK_2584 by Jack Silver, on Flickr

In case "English muffin" is an American term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_muffin

 

[Jeff WX1USN]