Hello, Devorah and Tweeters,

This video reminds me of an episode we witnessed in one of our study plots at the Farallon Islands in California. One day a Common Murre egg accidentally rolled downhill into a Brandt?s Cormorant nest nearby. This cormorant nest had lost its own eggs just the day before. The cormorants dutifully incubated the murre egg for the next 26 days and the murre chick hatched just fine. The cormorant parents tried to feed the chick like they usually do, expecting the murre chick to stick its head inside their mouths and grab regurgitated food. Unfortunately the murre chick never figured it out and it died a few days later. Particularly in large seabird colonies, screwball events and wayward accidents seem to be regular occurrences. It?s a crazy world out there.

It will be particularly interesting to see whether the Peregrines can rear the gull chicks to fledging ? please let us know the outcome.

Bob Boekelheide
Dungeness


From: Devorah the Ornithologist <birdologist at gmail.com>
Subject: [Tweeters] remarkable video of a peregrine feeding herring gull chicks
Date: June 11, 2014 at 1:25:34 AM PDT
To: tweeters message <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
hello everyone,
i've seen a lot of peculiar and unexpected bird behaviours in my lifetime, but even still, it's such a delight to know that birds never cease to amaze me. here's an example: in this video, a peregrine falcon is tenderly rearing two herring gull chicks as if they are her own:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08eDN1csgRA&feature=youtu.be

cheers,
GrrlScientist
Devorah Bennu, PhD