Subject: Re: A gull eats pigeon story
Date: May 3 09:36:33 1995
From: "M. Smith" - whimbrel at u.washington.edu



Seems to me we had a small discussion about this last year. Someone had
reported seeing a gull catch and kill pigeons by sit-and-wait method.
The gull would sit still and wait for a pigeon to walk too close (trusting
the gull of course) and the gull would lunge out, killing the pigeon and
eating it. More evidence of how predatory gulls can be. In New England
(as Peter Whitlock has already pointed out) Greater Black-backed Gulls
can be rather fierce predators. On 2 occasions I saw them catch and kill
adult Laughing Gulls at a gull/tern nesting colony, using a similar
approach. Sit and wait, then grab the gull by the neck and either drown
it, or just squeeze the neck. After seeing such things, people tend to
take on a greater respect for gulls, seeing them as more than just a
scavenger.

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Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html