Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Funny Sea Gull Video


I thought I would finish off my SeaGull blog with a funny video staring a sea gull! This video shows how serious these birds can be when it comes to obtaining food – any food. In this video a large sea gull knowingly walks past a cat – a very likely predator – to not only steal a few bites of food, but (spoiler alert!) even the entire bowl. Pretty funny!


After reading my blog I hope you have learned a few things about the birds that appear to take over our beaches, roofs, boardwalks and even schools. When I first started the blog I figured it would be an easy bird to observe and blog about while living in San Diego. Not only was this true, but I also found out a lot of interesting facts about sea gulls and how they tie in to animal behavior as a whole. 


Seagull Fun Facts!


Who would have thought seagulls could have fun facts? Well doubt these birds no more because here are ten fabulous fun facts for you about seagulls!

1.     Seagulls are caring parents and work as a mother-father team caring for their chicks
2.     Living in captivity can increase a seagulls lifespan by 30 years!
3.     They can latch on to ledges with a small claw on their lower leg – helps with balance on those windy afternoons!
4.     They are incredibly not picky (you should know this by now if you have been reading this blog!)
5.     Seagulls have the capability to learn how specific behavior can cause provide them with benefits (ex: learning how to smash open shellfish from parents)
6.     They can drink salt water!
7.     Although their funny feet cause them to be clumsy, they are all terrain birds.
8.      A seagulls natural habitat is cliff faces, but many of them currently inhabit man-made cliffs including chimneys or roofs.
9.     They have better eyesight than us.
10.   Juvenile birds are watched over by adult males and will stay in the flock until old enough to breed.

See I told you! Seagulls really can be interesting J



Reference
Image Reference

Seagulls on Stage??



When researching these birds commonly found on the coast, I was surprised to find not only information on the bird itself but on a play entitiled – The Seagull. I don’t know about you but I was pretty surprised to find out a play could be written about the bird but I guess anything can be a muse!
             The play was written by Anton Chekhov in 1895 and is a drama about romantic and artistic conflicts between four main characters. I will spare you all of the details about the cast and the plot of the play, but we do need to focus on the star animal! The actual seagull acts as two symbols in the play. First, representing freedom and security in the first act. Next, when the bird actually appears on stage in Act II, it is dead. This is when one of the characters gives the other a seagull he had shot. What a great gift… this dead bird, however, acts as inspriaction for a short story about a girl who is just like a seagull. The symbol shifts from meaning freedom in the beginning of the play to dependence at the end. Who would have thought a seagull could have so much meaning?



References

Monday, May 14, 2012

Seagull Catching: The Next Big Thing?


One day while walking down Mission Beach with my friend, we noticed a small group of high school aged young adults quietly staring at an empty beach towel.  Being a strange behavior for these normally rambunctious aged students, I knew something was about to happen. Just moments later, a seagull landed on the beach towel, and was swiftly captured by the boy hiding underneath it. Proudly holding the captured bird in the air, the boy proceeded to pose for a couple pictures and eventually let the frazzled bird free.  Let’s just say this caused quite a bit of ruckus on the beach. So was it a good idea to catch the bird? Definitely not. But why?
1.     These birds can be violent when threatened, and they like to bite. Although people think they are tough, human skin cannot beat a fight against a seagull’s beak.
2.     Seagulls can carry some germs that no one wants to get their hands on. This includes dried feces, a variety of bacteria, and some forms of fungus as well. (Mixing point one and point two would result in a pretty gross infection!)
3.     Finally, it is mean to the bird. Not only can it injure you, it can also injure the bird.
I hate to be a party pooper but it does not sound like seagull catching is a very good beach activity. If I were you, I’d stick to volleyball and body surfing! 

Because I'm sure you are all curious though, I thought I'd include a video of the phenomenon.... 


References 
http://www.parrot-link.co.uk/index.php?topic=42141.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORARWFIt5Vc

Scholarly Article on Gulls and other Seabirds


Although the fact that gulls will eat just about anything seems apparent in the last blog post and the post on scavenging, to what extent will these birds hunt out food that at first glance appears disgusting, but could be an essential aspect of their diet? In the North Sea (the body of water between England and Norway) the fish production industry is a crucial part of a many of the sea birds and gulls’ diets found in the area. In the 1992 study by Garthe, Camphuysen and Furness, Amounts of discard by commercial fisheries and their significance as food for seabirds in the North Sea, examines the extent to which seabirds scavenge on fish discards and the effect of this on the birds and the environment.
The study operationally defined “fish discards” as fish that are either (1) too small for commercial sale, (2) below landing size, (3) species with no commercial demand or (4) caught in excess of quota. Amounts of these discards were obtained from previous data. In addition to this, researchers calculated the proportion of waste consumed by birds from experimental discard studies. These findings hypothesized 5.9 million individual birds in the average scavenger community. Findings also estimate industrial fish companies in the North Sea produce roughly 790,000 tons of fish discards each year. The study also estimated sea birds consume 310,000 tons of these discards (almost 40%). This incredible amount of consumption highlights the importance of the mutually beneficial relationship between the sea birds and the fishing industry.
However, because the amount of fish discards is so high, there is a call to action to decrease the amount of waste. One attempt to change this amount of waste was in 2008 by the Conservationists. By making it illegal to throw back any fish that was not alive, this movement would significantly decrease many animals’ diets, causing a decrease in survivability of gulls and other sea birds living at the North Sea. So which is worse? Fish waste or decreasing the sea birds’ diet? That is up to you!

References
Garthe, S., Camphuysen, K. C. J., & Furness, R. W. (1996). Amounts of discards by commercial fisheries and their significance as food for seabirds in the North Sea. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 136(1-3), 1-11.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Spotted: An Unexpected Student on the USD Campus


Sure, the USD campus is pretty close to the ocean, so it would be understandable that you see a seagull here every now and then. However, this large bird made an appearance on our campus on Thursday night and was not afraid to be seen. This quite large seagull clearly had one thing in mind: food. Making it’s way all the way from the beach, this seagull has clearly been attracted by the overflowing trash cans, such as this one, on the USD campus.

As noted in the foraging and eating behavior blog post, seagulls can be very creative in how they obtain their food and they are not picky about how they get it. However, what caused this particular bird to risk coming all the way to the USD campus from the beach (about 5 miles) to scavenge for food? According the various foraging hypotheses discussed in class, it is clear USD must be a pretty consistent place to find a good amount of food for birds like this gull. Because it takes quite a bit of energy to travel this distance, the bird must be attracted by the security of knowing food will consistently be present.

One a separate note, what does this say about the USD campus? If a bird is willing to risk this much energy to search out food on our campus, trash must be consistently and readily available. Due to the fact foragers such as this seagull and others like raccoons are so prominent on our campus, maybe our school needs to cut down on trash or increase trash receptacles. Due to the fact a lot of the trash in this picture could be put in the nearly empty recycling bin right next to the trash bin, the answer might not be in increasing trash cans, but increasing knowledge on how to recycle! This will not only save a seagull from food it should not be eating, but it will also make our campus look a little nicer!



Picture credit: myself
Source 1: class lecture, Dr. Blaser Spring 2012
Source 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gull