{"id":33934,"date":"2024-10-17T17:10:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T00:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=33934"},"modified":"2024-10-17T17:10:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T00:10:46","slug":"gull-and-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=33934","title":{"rendered":"Gull and fish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Ring-billed Gull is so common in the late summer and fall that it becomes almost invisible. It is just here and it is usually around the water. Yet, now and then, it provides delightful views. Such was the case when one was seen hunting fish in a shallow lake-side pond.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now the gull has problems: It has no teeth and so it must capture the fish and swallow it whole; and it has no hands to adjust the fish into the proper position for eating.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Ring-billed gull dives for something under water.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-33939\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ringbilledgull241014as2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It comes up with a struggling fish and a good deal of lake weed. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-33937\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ringbilledgull241014aCCFs2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"721\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The fish struggles but is firmly gripped. Photo by Cynthia.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-33938\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ringbilledgull241014bCCFs2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The gull seems to just wait for the fish to die before trying to swallow it.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-33942\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ringbilledgull241014bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The trick is to align it with the bill and then swallow.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-33936\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ringbilledgull241014s2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Ring-billed Gull is so common in the late summer and fall that it becomes almost invisible. It is just here and it is usually around the water. Yet, now and then, it provides delightful views. Such was the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=33934\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-fish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33934"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33950,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33934\/revisions\/33950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}