Hello,

About a year ago I saw something simiiar here in Tacoma. A Pigeon was in the water under Old Town Dock and several Gulls decended on it and started feeding. The Pigeon tried to make it to shore but was gone from sight by the time it made it to the seafood restraunt.

Bryan Owens
Tacoma Wa
obryan214 at yahoo.com for now

Bruce Moorhead <bruceb at olypen.com> wrote:
While biking along the Port Angeles harbor today before noon, I stopped at the site along the inner harbor where the Common Eider was seen a year ago--where a small stream enters the harbor. On the gravelly mouth of the creek, about 25 Glaucous-winged Gulls, several Heermann's Gulls, several crows, a couple Canada Geese, and 20-25 Rock Pigeons were resting or coming and going to drink at the stream. Nothing at first seemed out of the ordinary.

Then I noticed that a small struggle was going on near the stream mouth: an adult Glaucous-winged Gull was holding a quietly struggling pigeon in its beak, just behind the base of its left wing. Over the next 20 minutes or so, I watched the gull grimly hold onto the pigeon and as it continually tried to stand up, with raised wings, and pull away from the gull...which caused them to turn in a slow, grim circle. I don't know how long this struggle had gone on before I arrived, but during the time I was there the pigeon seemed rather sturdy, rarely stopped struggling for long, and no sign of blood or tissue damage was apparent. Except for a couple of temporarily curious juvenile gulls and a crow or two, none of the other gulls resting nearby, within 20-30 ft, seemed to pay much attention to this grim little drama. When I finally left, no end appeared imminent for the pigeon, nor did the gull seem to lose any interest in grimly maintaining its hold on the pigeon. I could see !
no
apparent evidence of sickness or weakness in the pigeon that may have drawn the gull's interest initially, and wondered if the pigeon hadn't just wandered a bit too incautiousless close to the gull while intent on a drink.

Bruce Moorhead
Port Angeles, WA
bruceb at olypen.com
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