| Western
Gulls feeding and tending to their chicks at
Point Lobos. |
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A week later
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the chicks are testing their wings |
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Thoughtful Ring-billed gull |
Ring-billed gull |
Ring-billed gull |
This gull must be a relative of Jonathan
Livingston. |
Juvenile |
It is such a privilege to watch their fantastic
flying skills. |
Ring-billed Gull |
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Western Gull |
Shark for breakfast at the Martinez shoreline. |
A lucky gull for now |
until a juvenile claims the crab |
A sight you often see |
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| Gulls
cannot dive under the water because they are not designed for it. Some
of them have therefore found a compromise :
They jump about 1 foot straight up in the air and then plunge down
in the water head first. In that way they may reach a prey located
at a deeper level. |
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Western gull |
Bonaparte's gull at Zmudowski |
State Beach Park in winter |
Looking for prey |
Western Gull |
hunting crabs |
brought in by the waves |
Heermann's Gull |
Heermann's & California Gull, Juv |
Heerman's gull, juvenile |
Looking for prey |
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Heermann's Gull among friends |
| The tide
was particularly low that day. The ocean critters were exposed to the
many hungry shorebirds. So when a juvenile gull caught a small octopus a
prolonged fight broke out among the gulls to get it.
Look at the second photo and you will see that
the arms of the octopus are strung around the Gull's beak. So who
caught who?
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Juvenile gull found the octopus |
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The adults Pursue the youngster |
The juvenile looses its prey when they get into a
fight |
and a new pursuit starts over and goes on and on .
We don't know if the octopus survived in the end. |
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This young California gull was fascinated by the
bundle of straw. Perhaps there was a small prey within it. |
He brought it to the edge of the water where he
poked into the bundle. A wave came in and carried it off. |
A Western gull finding a starfish |
Herring gull with a starfish |
Heerman's Gull Juv. taking off from the Sealions
platform |
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Caspian Tern |
Caspian tern |
Caspian Tern |
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Elegant terns |
debating something |
or proposing ? |
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Forster's Tern |
after a dive |
Two of the young ones |
They can fly, but not yet hunt for
fish |
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