Gulls are versatile eaters. Yet around here, their fish-eating antics are the most fun to watch. The first picture was taken two years ago; the rest are recent.
Only once have I seen a gull pluck a fish from the water. Lacking the talons of an osprey or eagle, the gull had to catch it with its bill and then swallow it whole—which it did a moment later while still flying. This is a Herring Gull.
More typically, a gull seems to scavenge a dead fish that has floated to the surface. This can be amusing to watch for, being unable to hold the fish with its feet, when the gull pecks at the fish, it drifts away. The gull must then repeatedly chase the dead fish. This is a Ring-billed Gull.
Another solution to the problem is to go after fish that have washed ashore. Now the gull can peck at the fish without the need to either hold or chase it. I have yet to see a gull rig the situation by pushing a floating fish towards the shore. This is also a Ring-billed Gull.
This juvenile Herring Gull has learned early: a washed-up fish is ideal for eating.
Unfriendly pilings
Birds like wooden pilings.
Pilings are the heavy beams driven vertically into the lake bottom to anchor docks (among other things). Traditionally, a log was used for a piling; it provided birds with a natural offshore perch safe from land predators.
Many birds took advantage of such pilings: ducks, geese, raptors, woodpeckers, swallows, corvids, herons, kingfishers, gulls…. Not only do birds appreciate the refuge, but observers delight in the unobstructed view of them. Indeed, some of my best pictures have been taken of birds on or adjacent to pilings.
Alas, over less than a decade, the technology of pilings has become unfriendly for birds. Pilings have become metal—impervious to a bird’s clinging talons and probing bills—and they are now topped with conical plastic caps. Initially, such caps served as a moisture barrier for the wooden pilings, or as one site notes, they provide an “inexpensive way to protect costly pilings from internal rot.” But, the caps are now added to metal pilings to help “discourage birds from landing” (dockbuilders.com).
Piling caps certainly do discourage birds. Since these new pilings have appeared along our lakeside, I have only seen one species capable of clinging to its smooth conical top: a kingfisher.
One of the great delights of lakeside living has been diminished by conical piling caps.
I offer two pictures taken Sunday.
An osprey alighted on a traditional wooden piling and then feasted on a fish. The osprey is one of a wide variety of birds that I have watched taking advantage of the safety and structure of traditional wooden pilings.
No bird can latch onto the side of the new metal pilings and I have only seen one species capable of perching atop the cone: a kingfisher. Kingfishers are fun to watch, but this palette could have had sported many more colours.
