Friday, April 10, 2009

Seagull Behavior

The COG and I are enjoying the gulls here in Brighton. Residents complain about the noise and the bustle, but I love them. I love their raucous sound and I love their bully boy aggressive behaviour.

Yesterday we watched some girls on a park bench feeding crumbs to pigeons. The gulls showed up, squawking and swaggering and demanding their share. I noticed, though, they didn't actually displace the pigeons. They made a lot of noise, but their behaviour actually seemed pretty polite, for birds.

One of the seagulls was a juvenile, like the picture here, which is from the internet. He was as big as the adult gulls, but still spotted brown. His behavior was particularly interesting. He assumed a different posture, with his neck pulled back and his beak open and up - like a baby bird in a nest - and he made a high baby squeaking sound. He wasn't any more successful than the other birds, though, the girls on the bench didn't seem to understand.

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