As we were walking through Brandon Park, we saw this gull on the grass by the path. I don’t know for sure what it was up to, but I wondered whether its steps were designed to sound like rain falling to worms beneath the surface to encourage them to come up and then get eaten. Maybe it is something else but, whatever it is, it was pretty funny to watch. Needless to say, I thought it was worth getting some video.
I started my morning of a trip to Whidbey Island at Moran’s Beach. This is a good location for morning arrivals at the airfield but it also provides a nice view out into the water. You can get some wildlife passing through if you are lucky and I was. A bald eagle was hunting in the area. It was hanging out in the trees just north of me and then heading out to the water. There was a fishing boat working not far offshore. It was attracting a ton of attention from the local gull population and they were swarming around the boat. The eagle was also interested, though. It would swoop through periodically, looking for a cheap snack. The gulls were not too impressed by the interloper!
As we walked along the shore trail in Stanley Park, we came up on a gull that had just caught a crab. The gull was intent on eating the crab, as well you might imagine. However, its lunch had also caught the attention of a bunch of crows (could hardly call them a murder). Consequently, the gull was trying to find a way to avoid the crows and eat its food. It was not going to escape them, of course. Instead, it had to do the best it could and accept that they were going to get a few scraps.
Just off Cattle Point on San Juan Island, there is a small island which, on the day we were visiting, was very popular with a load of gulls. While we were standing, looking in that direction, all of the gulls took off at once and were circling for a few minutes before they settled down again. I had assumed that a bird of prey was nearby to cause them to get airborne. There are plenty of eagles in the area. However, I couldn’t make out anything specific that had caused them to be startled. Maybe just one of them decided to take off and the rest followed just in case!
Our hotel room in Victoria was near to the top of the building. The window was set into the roof line. We had a flat space outside the window and it was popular with the local bird life. On several occasions, we had a gull land on the space and stand there for a while. It actually seemed interested in us rather than deterred by our presence. No guarantee that it is the same bird but we started to feel like it was visiting us on a regular basis.
The waterfront of Victoria Harbour has a statue of Captain Cook. This is a long way from his home town of Whitby but the lad did get about a bit. Given the nature of his efforts, you might think he deserves a bit of respect (unless you come from a place that he ended up harming irreparably). A local gull -or one of its cohorts – was clearly not from the respect camp.
Hayman and I were shooting at Anza Fisherman’s Park. As the name suggests, this is a popular spot for fishing and this seems to attract the attention of a lot of gulls. There was a steady breeze which allowed the gulls to hover close above us and sometimes alongside us. We didn’t have anything of interest for them but it took them a while to work that out.
I got some shots of them as they hung around us. The background of a few was disturbed a little by the fishing poles that were propped up but the long lens wide open managed to isolate them from most of the background. They were a bit like photographing aircraft in formation but they didn’t necessarily respond to the directions I had for the shots I was after. Not the best formation pilots for photo work I guess.
Here is one for those of you that know your vintage cars. How much is a Gull Wing Mercedes worth? This one is kept in the Lyon Air Museum in California. It seems to be in great condition and I assume it is worth quite a bit but I have no idea how much. It was tucked in amongst lots of valuable aircraft so is not the most expensive thing on display. Since the planes are generally airworthy, I would guess this is a runner too.
The eagles and the ducks got our attention but the gulls were also around on the Mississippi. Gulls don’t tend to get much interest but, if you have been standing around for a while waiting for something to happen, the gulls start to be a bit more interesting. Is this the bird shooting equivalent of going ugly early? They even did some diving for us close in so I guess I should be a bit more grateful. We put it down to tracking practice and we will stick with that I think.