Australian Safari 1/9/2019

Silver gulls

I am not a great fan of gulls. They tend to be bland birds, trash scavengers with a raucous unpleasant call and brash manners. On the other hand, they adapt quickly to people and are therefore easy to photograph. It’s just that they are so infrequently cute! And, admit it, the photos in my recent blog of the silver gull swallowing another bird’s chick whole, headfirst, was not the most endearing view of a bird.

Back on Heron Island (Queensland, Australia), a small island so crowded with birds and humans that ALL the birds are people adapted, snapping photos was a cinch. Since gulls are unafraid by nature, getting close was doubly easy there. Which didn’t mean they reacted kindly to it when sitting on a nest.

Though protesting in no uncertain terms, the gull permitted me to get 5 feet away while refusing to move from its nest. I have to admire the sassiness of this gull, to say nothing of the shocking red ‘lipstick’. If you’re going to protest loudly, do it while wearing something red!

Their sharp warning calls startled me at times. On a different part of the island, near the dining hall, a silver gull walked up behind me several times, scolding me so suddenly and so vigorously from a few feet away that I jumped a few inches in spite of myself. Of course, a few inches may be my entire vertical jump these days…but I digress.

The silver gulls treated each other to loud arguments as well. Though, in truth, I can’t say if this pair below represents a couple, a sibling discussion, or some other behavior not lending itself to human interpretation. Let me assure you,though, it made a big noise!

Thanks for reading.