Gulls & Terns

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Bird Noir

December 3, 2011 Art

There are wildlife photographers who apologize for any urban elements — like street lamps — in their bird images. I embrace those shots, for three reasons: I admire the rugged survivalists that are urban birds and wildlife. What we throw at them in the way of obstacles, pollution, windows, automobiles, poisons, traps, wires and electricity, [...]

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Fly On Sweet Angel

November 28, 2011 Gulls & Terns

Angel came down from heaven yesterday
She stayed with me just long enough to rescue me
And she told me a story yesterday,
About the sweet love between the moon and the deep blue sea;

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Derelict Nets & Entangled Birds

October 19, 2011 Bay Flotsam

Note: All gulls pictured in this post, and other trapped birds were freed from the netting. Follow Up on 10/21/11: I phoned today and learned that an official went out to this net, confirmed what we saw in terms of bird entanglement, and holes in the net have apparently been fixed as a temporary measure, [...]

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Teaching the Kids to Forage

August 30, 2011 Animal Behavior

Juvenile gulls are as determined to get free food from their parents– as their parents are to wean them from the freebies. I’ve seen many adult gulls swimming or flapping away from their begging youngsters, forcing the juvies to forage on their own. I haven’t often watched a parent gull patiently teach the babies to [...]

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The Turns of Terns

June 6, 2011 Animal Behavior

I’ve described terns, with their distinct calls, as aerial barflies with too much whiskey and smoke on the voice box. Each tern is raspy in its own way, and Caspian Terns have a sharp croak that pierces the air over my balcony. They’re huddled on a warehouse rooftop one minute, hundreds of them, blurred by [...]

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Anthropomorphizing a Caspian-Peregrine Tussle

June 3, 2011 Gulls & Terns

I’ve been grabbing Seattle’s ever-so-fleeting sun breaks to photograph a group of Caspian Terns who fish every evening on Puget Sound. I’ll post those shots soon. As I was packing up my tripod tonight, I saw the telltale movement and wing shape of a Peregrine overhead. She was riding the thermals up and out of [...]

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Les Mouettes Aimes Les Petits Pains

March 31, 2011 Birds

photos ©ingridtaylar – email me for permissions mouette = from Middle French mouette = from Old French moette = diminutive of Old French maoe (Anglo-Norman mave, mauve) = from Old English mǣw (“seagull”) = from Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”) Someone challenged these gulls with leftovers from the patisserie. If a gull can swallow a starfish, [...]

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The Maw

March 12, 2011 Gulls & Terns

Two of a huge group of gulls, collecting on a duck pond during a fierce, Seattle wind storm.

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Gull of the Revolution

January 15, 2011 Gulls & Terns

Shot at the Seattle waterfront, framed by steam from Seattle Steam. Converted to B&W/sepia in Nik’s Silver Efex Pro.

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The Art of Gull Feet

October 8, 2010 Animal Behavior

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Fast Food [Gull] Nation

June 1, 2010 Animal Behavior

Part of what makes gulls both amusing and exasperating to humans is their cleverness and opportunism when it comes to food. Across the gull universe, the diet is omnivorous. They’ll eat crustaceans, fish, insects and other marine organisms. They will also prey on the nests of other bird species for food. A number of researchers [...]

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Forster’s in Flight

April 15, 2010 Gulls & Terns

When you first encounter terns, their mid-air, hairpin turns seem unpredictable and difficult to capture — especially since these birds are quite small when you’re thinking about filling the frame.

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Melee

April 8, 2010 Gulls & Terns

No notes on this one . . . just gulls doing what gulls do . . . a skirmish over a bit of food. Okay, one note . . .
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The Case of the Fledgling Gull

August 21, 2009 Animal Behavior

A short photo series, as I encountered it. A young gull waits for its parent. Parent arrives, gull follows behind and calls out for minutes on end. Juvenile gets more aggressive, tries for some food from a familiar source. The end. Gulls do wean their young but may continue feeding even older juveniles if the [...]

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More Alameda Terns: Caspian, Forster’s, Least Terns

May 5, 2009 Bay Area

Take a look at this image of terns — not because it’s anything spectacular. In fact, those terns were but specks on my visual horizon, so this is a dramatic crop to show just one thing: the size differential between the Caspian Terns and the Forster’s Terns I wrote about in a previous post. The [...]

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There is a Season … Terns (Alameda Terns)

April 18, 2009 Bay Area

Lame Byrds pun aside . . . Forster’s Tern Nation in Alameda – Sterna forsteri ** Photo usage and restrictions Their gravelly call precedes them, these Forster’s Terns (Sterna forsteri) with their fuzzy black berets and orange feet. They sound like aerial barflys with too much whiskey and smoke on the voice box. When it’s [...]

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Seagull Ballet

November 30, 2008 Gulls & Terns

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 [...]

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