new Thing #4--Determined Seagull

New Thing #4--Determined Seagull

D & I sometimes drive down to the beach for a pre-sunset stroll. It’s so relaxing, nice & cool out, plus it’s also a little less crowded at that time. And we don’t have to pay to park, so how can you not like that?

A few weeks ago (seems like all of these entries start with that, huh? ;) ) we seemed to be there during seagull dinnertime. The tide was going out, & tons of seagulls were on the shore watching the waves & presumably waiting for something to swim close to shore. Just as we were talking about the major influx of seagulls on the beach, we noticed a GIANT seagull in the water, swimming to the shore, but backwards. Like butt to the beach. It’s head was down sorta in the water & upon further inspection we saw that the hugest seagull known to man was pulling a large,live, creepy skate fish out of the ocean!


I’ve never seen anything like it; it was crazy! It took the gull a good 3-4 minutes of fighting against the waves, the current & the fish until it got to land. The gull dragged the struggling fish onto the sand, where it flopped a few times until the seagull administered a precise & somewhat brutal beak peck & killed it. Holy moly!!

It was kind of sad seeing the fish struggling, but as Mufasa says, “It’s the ciiiiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiife.” It was actually really, well, cool, to see the seagull in full-on hunt mode. That‘s rare around here. Usually Rhode Island seagulls are eating McDonald‘s french fries in a parking lot, or are lurking around beach go-ers, hoping for Cheet-O‘s or a crust of sandwich. And to see the seagull swimming with such force & determination was something I’ve never really seen before. And that killing blow--whoa!

Dinner was served.

In looking up seagulls, I found that some seagulls live off of whales. As whales surface the gulls peck out some blubber. WHAT!? They also engage in kleptoparasitism, which is stealing another beings’ food. Now that we know that fancy term we can stretch the meaning a bit to impress our friends the next time a gull takes off with our bag of chips at the beach! As long as seagulls don’t start pecking at my blubber as a means of survival, me & seagulls, we cool.