Fast Food Gulls
Often maligned for their boisterous behavior and messiness, I maintain gulls are no more messy than humans. But, of course, that’s my usual stance when it comes to the ongoing battles between humans and critters in increasingly vanishing open space. We share space, often crowded space, and I suppose seagulls stand to lose the perception war when we’re the ones calling the shots.
Gulls are also predators in the bird world, opportunistic feeders, which sometimes brings them into conflict with other bird species and nesting sites. This tends to be an issue when landfill sites border habitat areas, since gulls are often scavenging the refuse, finding good use for our discards in those mammoth piles. How much of a food source landfills provide for gulls is not fully clear, but biologists at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory are looking into it as part of the Gulls and Landfills Project.
You’ll find plenty of fast-food-nation gulls begging for fries and chips down at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. But the best captures of seagulls are when they’re taken in their own element — graceful, vivid, and absent of human intrusion (and junk food).
They’re brilliant birds, with — if you’ll allow yourself the anthropomorphism I always allow myself — a great sense of humor. It’s in their confident waddle, their deft and competitive swooping for tossed food, their wisdom in sidling up to boats in the harbor, along with the Brown Pelicans, instinctively knowing when the fishing boats return with the day’s catch. At the Berkeley Marina, on a recent sojourn, my mate and I witnessed at least ten gulls crowded around the fish cleaning station. The boats had not yet arrived at their berths, but the gulls knew the time of day they might retrieve some leftovers from the cleaning basin.
Ring-billed Gull
Gull Identification – A Learning Curve
A fellow wildlife volunteer recently took a class on gull identification which is far more complex than it might appear. There are subtle variations, especially among juveniles. She suggested to me that some are almost impossible to identify unless you see them in flight. And if you’re new to gull observation (that would be me) the distinctions are often not that easy to discern unless you see the birds in proximity to another variety of gull.
My favorite local gulls are the Heermann’s. I’m sure among gull appreciators, this sentiment is a common one. They stand out among Bay Area gulls with their deep grey plumage and vivid orange bills. According to the Cornell All About Birds site, Heermann’s gulls are the most likely to steal food directly from a pelican. Considering what a laborious task it is for pelicans to execute their near-kamikaze dives, that must be one sobering realization for the pelican when a Heermann’s gull takes the spoils.
Heermann’s Gull
I called this series “Seagull Ballet,” catching the gull, as I did, in a number of poses that seemed poetic to me.
Anyway, for your viewing . . .
