When I was living in southern England, the local Herring Gulls were always
eating sea stars; it seemed the lower the tide, the more they ate... It
wasn't unusual to walk down the beach and find heavily-mutilated stars
everywhere...

00 caren
http://www.ParkGallery.org
george davis creek, north fork


On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 12:15, Gary Bletsch <garybletsch at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear Tweeters,
>
> Yesterday, 2-20-2010, I watched a Glaucous-winged Gull eat a sea star at
> Green Point in Washington Park, Anacortes.
>
> Somebody had asked about gulls eating sea stars on Tweeters recently, if I
> remember correctly.
>
> This was an adult gull, actually a GWGU X Western Gull hybrid, judging from
> the dark grey tips to the primaries. It had much greyish smudging on the
> head (winter plumage), and medium-pale, greenish yellow irides. The bird had
> been floating alone in the swells, about fifty meters off the very point,
> for a good 30 minutes after I arrived, sometimes shadowed by a lone Pelagic
> Cormorant.
>
> Then, at about 2:50 pm or so, the gull hopped onto the rocky shoreline
> (after some kids had left that spot). I was perhaps thirty meters away,
> probably less.
>
> I wasn't really watching it at first, but soon I noticed that the gull had
> a broken-up sea star in its bill. The sea star was pinkish in color on its
> upper surfaces, more yellowish below. When I first saw the gull with the
> echinoderm, it was eating one of the arms. The arm was about as long as the
> gull's bill, but more slender. Soon the bird swallowed this. Less than a
> minute later, it picked up another arm, then hopped down into the water,
> where it ate it. Then I quit watching the bird.
>
> Hope this information is of some value to whomever it was that posted
> earlier.
>
> Other fun birds yesterday included a male Anna's Hummingbird singing at the
> Ship Harbor ferry landing, four California Quail at Anacortes Telescope, and
> a couple of neck-banded Tundra Swans (blue bands with hard-to-read yellow
> characters) just north of Conway.
>
> Oh, and there was an albinistic (dilute-plumaged or leucistic) Red-winged
> Blackbird near the west end of P Johnson Road, north of Conway. It was with
> about 150 Brewer's and 20 other Red-winged Blackbirds, just east of the
> Skagit River's south fork dike.
>
> Yours truly,
>
> Gary Bletsch
> Gary Bletsch Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA
> garybletsch at yahoo.com
>
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